CARE home owners have warned they are becoming caught up in the delays on checking staff to ensure they are safe to work with elderly and vulnerable residents.

Employees in homes, such as care assistants, now have to undergo the same checks as teachers and other working in schools.

But homes have complained that they, too, are having to wait weeks for checks on care assistants to be carried out by the Criminal Records Bureau, the agency which also vets teachers.

Nadra Ahmed, of the Kent Care Homes Association, said it was taking a minimum of six weeks for care assistants to be given security clearance by the bureau. Often job offers were not taken up because of the time it was taking.

“I know of one home which has been waiting 17 weeks for a check on a care assistant. With the recruitment and retention problems that there are in the sector, homes are having problems. If the applications are not processed by the CRB, we cannot confirm people in their jobs,” she said.

The high-profile complaints about delays on teachers meant that checks on care staff were likely to end up “at the bottom of the pile”.

The association was advising homes to follow their normal procedures on staff by taking up references and asking for a full employment history.