The Care Quality Commission doesn’t inspect recruitment agencies directly. But when a care provider is inspected and found to be using non-compliant agency staff, the consequences land on everyone.
For agencies supplying into CQC-regulated settings, the compliance bar is high — and the gaps are predictable.
The most common failures
Based on CQC inspection reports and provider feedback, three areas consistently cause problems:
Reference gaps. Two references are required, including one from the most recent employer. Agencies frequently have references on file — but not the right ones. A character reference from a colleague doesn’t meet the standard.
Training verification. Mandatory training certificates are collected at onboarding. But training expires. Six months later, the candidate’s manual handling certification has lapsed — and nobody noticed.
DBS portability assumptions. A DBS check from a previous role is not automatically valid for a new placement. The Update Service helps, but only if the check is registered and actively monitored.
Why these gaps persist
The pattern is always the same: the initial compliance check was done correctly. But ongoing monitoring — tracking expiries, validating continued eligibility, re-checking references — fell through the cracks.
Manual systems catch things at the start. They miss things over time.
What a system-level approach looks like
When compliance is run as a continuous process rather than a one-off check, these gaps close automatically. Every expiry is tracked. Every reference is validated against the correct standard. Every DBS status is monitored in real time.
The agency doesn’t need to remember what’s due. The system knows.