Tens of thousands of social workers applied for registration in the last few days before the cut-off date of 1 December the General Social Care Council has revealed.

44,435 forms have now arrived at the GSCC’s Rugby Registration Centre, with over half of applicants leaving it to the last fortnight to apply.

Lynne Berry, Chief Executive said: “This last minute surge has exceeded our expectations. We’d like to thank every social worker who has applied so far but ask you to be patient while we process your applications.

“Calls for the registration of qualified social workers has been growing over the past 25 years. Every single Registered Social Worker and those who managed to get their application in on time should be very proud of this achievement.”

With so many forms to process, the GSCC is asking social workers to be patient as it will take some time to process their applications. Properly completed forms and those without concerns should be registered well before the 1 April 2005 deadline.

Some social workers have not been able to apply as yet, and Lynne Berry added:

“If you’ve yet to apply, get your form in as soon as possible. We will still accept it and once we’ve processed the forms we have now, we’ll do what we can to get you registered on time.”

An acknowledgement letter will be sent within a few weeks to all applicants as confirmation of receipt of their application forms. But the GSCC has warned that staff on the registration helpline will not be able to advise applicants of the status of their form at the moment