Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make support available to trainee nurses unable to complete their courses because of delays in the processing of their applications for Enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service checks.

The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) aims to process all applications within the shortest time possible. The vast majority of applicants do receive their certificates in a timely manner and in December the average processing time for DBS applications was 15.3 days.

It is important that checks undertaken are thorough and sometimes the DBS needs to refer an application to one or more local police forces as part of the enhanced certificate checking process. Unfortunately, a small number of forces have been experiencing difficulties in completing their checks within expected timescales.

Where delays occur in the processing of DBS certificates, prospective employers of trainee nurses and other healthcare employees who will be working with adults only are able to use a service known as Adult First. Adult First is an online facility provided for healthcare workers by the DBS that can be used in cases where, exceptionally, and in accordance with the terms of Department of Health guidance, a person is permitted to start work with adults before a DBS Certificate has been obtained.