Important information for social care services on staffing - SSSC COVID-19 recruitment portal now available to all social care services

The new guidance for employers on how to use the recruitment hub to fill vacancies is now available. It includes important information on:

• contracts
• funding
• using the Care Inspectorate notification and triage system.

Get the COVID-19 Recruitment Portal for Social Care: Guidance for Employers here.

We’ve been working together with Scottish Government, COSLA, the Care Inspectorate and other partners to set up a system to help social care services in Scotland to recruit staff during this critical time. This service is for social care services and does not include day care of children services at this time.

The information here explains how the recruitment system will work.

We have people available to work now and waiting to be matched to services and more people will be added as soon as checks are completed.

Please read the information below which tells you how the system will work and what you need to do.

Which care services can access the recruitment portal to search for suitable staff?

The recruitment portal is available to all social care services in Scotland. We recognise that there is a significant pressure on care home services at this time and urge providers to access the portal as soon as possible so that they are prepared and have enough skilled staff in place.

How can I get access to staff if I need them in my service at this time?

The recruitment portal is available to all social care services to access to help you prepare for and manage changes to your staffing levels during the crisis.

You can access the portal through the MySSSC accounts set up for your countersignatories.

You will then have access to a new COVID-19 portal available in MySSSC where you can see the list of available social care staff in your area and can match them to your service.

Who in the service will get access to the new portal?

Only the countersignatories for the service will have access to the new portal.

Please make sure that you have more than one countersignatory in your service. There is no limit to the number of countersignatories each organisation can have. Your lead countersignatory can set up more countersignatories easily through their MySSSC account and we would ask you to do that now so that you are prepared should you need to get access the portal.

Who will carry out checks on the staff before they are available for work?

We are carrying out pre-employment checks before we put anyone onto the portal. Checks include:

• identity check
• Protecting Vulnerable Groups (PVG) check
• the worker has declared they are eligible to work in the UK
• the person has confirmed they do not have underlying health condition which may have an impact on their ability to work.

Once the pre-employment checks are completed individuals will be added to the COVID-19 recruitment portal hosted in MySSSC.

We contacted 50,000 people who were previously registered with us to ask if they can come back to work in social care.  We have had a good response to this so far, with over 2,500 individuals expressing an interest.

Contact information

Sandra Wilson
Communications Officer
Scottish Social Services Council
communications@sssc.uk.com

Source: https://news.sssc.uk.com/news/social-care-staffing