Adult care home worker registration

Adult care home workers are workers who are employed by a care home service providing accommodation together with nursing or care at a place in Wales. Care home services are registered with the Care Inspectorate Wales (CIW).

Job titles may not be called ‘adult care home worker’, but if a worker provides care and support to adults in an accommodation and care setting and the place of work is registered with CIW they will need to register with us.

If qualified nurses are only providing nursing care then they wouldn’t need to register with us, however, they will need to register if they are providing care and support as described above. Even if a nurse is registered with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) they will still need to register with us if they fall within the definition of an adult care home worker.

Watch our case study videos to hear what it’s like to register as an adult care home worker.

Registration for people working as adult care home workers became mandatory from October 2022. If you need to apply to register, please do so as soon as possible.

• If you already work as an adult care home worker, you must apply with us as soon as possible.
• If you started working as an adult care home worker before the 30 September 2022, you’ll have 12 months from the start date of you job to register
• If you started working as an adult care worker from 1 October 2022 to 31 March 2023, you’ll need to register with us by 1 October 2023.
• If you started on or after 1 April 2023, you’ll have six months from the start date of your role to register with us.

There are several ways to register as an adult care home worker.

If you work in another role you can find out more about applying here.

1. Register with a qualification

For workers who have a practice qualification Level 2 or 3 in health and social care (Diploma, QCF or NVQ) or equivalent.

Workers can also register using the City and Guilds Level 2 Health and Social Care: Core, but will then need to complete the full Level 2 or 3 in health and social care (Diploma, QCF or NVQ) within three years.

Next steps:

• Check that the qualification is accepted for registration
• Apply to register on SCWonline.

2. Register by employer assessment

Employers can confirm their workers’ application to register after assessing their understanding against a list of areas.

The Employer must be confident that the worker has the necessary understanding, as set out in the employer’s assessment. The employer completes this assessment by confirming the information in their SCWonline account when a worker submits an online application. Online applications will also need to be endorsed by the employer.

Social care workers who use the employer assessment route to register will need to complete one of the qualifications listed in the qualification framework within the first three-year period of registration.

Read our frequently asked questions about the new employer assessment.

Find out more about how to choose this route in your application by watching this step by step video.

Watch our videos about applying to register.

The registration fee for registering as an adult care home worker is £30.

More information on registration fees.

As part of the application process, employers will be asked to:

• confirm a worker's application to register (if a worker is registering without a qualification)
• endorse applications
• verify the identity of the worker when applying if required.

See more information on employer responsibilities.

Watch our quick guide video for employers to understand how to manage any requests we make and actions we need you to take.

Workers will need to pay an annual fee to maintain their registration and submit an application to renew their registration every three years. This can be done through their SCWonline account.

More information on renewing registration.

Workers should also let us know when they have completed any training requirement on their registration. For example if they need to complete a qualification relevant to their role with in the first three years of being registered with us, they should send us their certificate once it has been awarded.

See our quick guide video about your responsibilities as a registered person.

We will only look into a worker’s practice when a concern has been raised. We will consider whether a worker’s fitness to practise is impaired (negatively affected).

If a worker is not fit to practise they can be removed from the Register and won't be able to practice in Wales.

More information on how we deal with concerns.

If you have a question or if you can't find what you are looking for get in touch with us.