Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he make it his policy to waive fees for Disclosure and Barring Service checks for healthcare workers.

The Government introduced a free and fast track Disclosure and Barring Service check service for health and social care employers in March 2020 as part of the pandemic response. This service was brought in to ensure that they were able to safely and rapidly onboard large volumes of workers into COVID-19 related roles. The decision to cease the free arrangements in Spring this year is because the demand to recruit large numbers of staff into COVID-19 related positions has significantly reduced and the vaccine programme is coming to an end. The focus is now on recruiting to support elective care as business as usual which is not the legislated purpose of these arrangements. This is aligned to the government’s ‘Living with Covid’ strategy and ceasing of other temporary arrangements under the Coronavirus Act.