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19 August 2026 · admin · 6 min read
Hiring the right people in health and social care isn’t just about finding someone with the right qualifications on paper. It’s about making sure every person who walks through your service’s doors; whether they’re a support worker, a senior carer, or a board director has been properly checked, vetted, and deemed safe to work with at risk people.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) doesn’t leave this to chance. A cluster of specific regulations sets out exactly what providers must do before, during, and after the hiring process. If you’re responsible for recruitment in a care setting, these are the rules that should be shaping your hiring files right now.
This is the big one — the legal backbone of pre-employment vetting. Regulation 19 places a clear duty on providers to make sure that anyone they employ is fit for their role. That means carrying out thorough checks before someone starts work and holding all the necessary records required under Schedule 3.
Think of it as the gatekeeper regulation. If someone shouldn’t be working in care, this is the regulation that’s supposed to catch that before they get through the door. The key word here is before — not after a DBS comes back with concerning information, not three weeks into their probation. Before.
It’s not just frontline staff who need to be checked. Regulation 5 makes sure that people in leadership positions — board members, directors, senior leaders — meet strict standards of integrity, capability, and fitness.
This matters because leadership sets the tone for the entire organisation. A director with a history of financial misconduct or a suspended professional registration isn’t just a reputational risk — they’re a safeguarding risk. The same scrutiny you apply to a new support worker needs to apply at the top of the org chart too.
You can have the most rigorous recruitment process in the country, but if you don’t have enough properly qualified staff on shift, people in your care are at risk. Regulation 18 requires providers to maintain sufficient numbers of suitably qualified, competent, and supported staff.
What does this mean for recruitment? It means you can’t just leave vacancies open for months. It means agency staff filling gaps need to meet the same standards as permanent hires. And it means newly recruited staff need proper induction and ongoing support — not just a DBS check and a start date.
Safeguarding is the reason all of this matters. Regulation 13 exists to protect service users from abuse, neglect, and improper treatment. One of the most effective ways to do that is making sure the wrong people never get hired in the first place.
This regulation connects directly to your screening process. Proper DBS checks, thorough reference verification, and employment history reviews aren’t just box-ticking exercises — they’re safeguarding tools. Every gap in a CV that goes unexplained, every reference that comes back vague, every DBS that gets filed without being reviewed is a potential safeguarding failure waiting to happen.
Knowing the regulations is one thing. Proving you followed them is another. Schedule 3 sets out the specific enforcement requirements — the actual checks and records you need to hold for every employee. Here’s what that looks like in practice.
Every new hire needs to provide proof of photo ID and their legal right to work in the UK. This isn’t just about compliance — it confirms the person sitting in front of you is actually who they say they are. A passport, a biometric residence permit, or a combination of documents from the Home Office’s approved list — whatever you accept, make sure you’re following current right-to-work guidance, not a checklist from three years ago.
You need a full employment history with any gaps explained. That means dates, reasons for leaving, and a honest accounting of what someone was doing during any periods between jobs. Gaps aren’t automatically a red flag — people take career breaks, deal with health issues, travel — but unexplained gaps are. Don’t let curiosity slip into negligence here.
References need to go beyond “they worked here from X to Y.” You need satisfactory conduct records, particularly from any previous health or social care roles. A reference that’s suspiciously brief or carefully worded can tell you as much as a detailed one — sometimes more. Always follow up if something doesn’t sit right.
The Disclosure and Barring Service check is non-negotiable in care settings. For most roles, you’ll need an Enhanced DBS check, which includes both spent and unspent convictions as well as any information held locally by police. For roles working directly with vulnerable adults, check against the adults’ barred list too.
And don’t forget — DBS checks are a snapshot, not a lifetime guarantee. The update service exists for a reason, and regular re-checks should be part of your ongoing compliance, not just your onboarding process.
Before someone starts work in a care role, you need evidence that they’re physically and mentally fit for the specific demands of the job. This isn’t about discriminating against people with health conditions — it’s about making sure they can safely perform the role and identifying any reasonable adjustments needed to support them. An occupational health assessment or a signed health declaration form serves this purpose.
These regulations don’t exist in isolation — they overlap and reinforce each other. Regulation 19 tells you to vet people properly. Schedule 3 tells you exactly what “properly” means. Regulation 13 is the reason why it all matters. And Regulations 5 and 18 make sure the same standards apply to leadership and staffing levels.
If you’re auditing your current recruitment files, ask yourself honestly: could you pick a random employee file right now and find all five Schedule 3 checks documented, dated, and complete? If the answer is “probably” or “mostly,” that’s a gap worth closing — because that’s exactly what a CQC inspector will do.
Safe recruitment isn’t about perfection. It’s about having a clear, consistent process that you follow every single time, and records that prove it.
Whether you're preparing for an inspection, developing your team, or starting a new care business, we're here to help.
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