Fake References and the Northern Health Trust 

The issue of fake references for social care jobs in the NI NHS was made public in June. At the last Northern Health and Social Care Trust board meeting members were told that fake references have been submitted for agency posts with a “small number specific to the Northern Trust”.It has been agreed that all Trusts will “pause on-boarding for any new agency workers, registered and unregistered” 

While the Northern Trust said there were only a small number of fake references for agency posts in the board area, even one is one too many. This highlights a lack of due diligence on the part of agencies and the Procurement and Logistics services with the responsibility for the recruitment of qualified and unqualified staff. Qualified staff can be checked through their professional bodies to ensure they are registered and qualified, and unqualified staff in health and social care services must be registered with the Northern Ireland Social Care Council.

These registration credentials are open and the accessible to the public and employers. For other staff not required to be registered then the access to NI clearance should be provided to both agencies and the NHS. The Workers Party have always believed that all staff should be directly employed by the health and social care service. The more outsourcing, privatisation, and fragmentation that is introduced, then the more likely it is for fake references to become a much larger problem.

The Procurement and Logistics Agency should make public the number of incidents of forged references that have been discovered. The public have a right to know.