More than 1,500 responses have already been received to the General Social Care Council (GSCC) consultation on the details of registration for the next groups of social care workers, only one month into the three-month consultation period. Responses are now coming in at a rate of 100-150 a day.

Starting next week in Manchester, the GSCC are also holding five regional consultation events throughout England to encourage residential and domiciliary care workers (working with adults, children and young people) and their employers to engage in face-to-face discussion about the issues around registration for these social care workers. A service user event and a stakeholder jury event will also take place later in the month in Birmingham and those interested in attending these events should contact the GSCC directly.

The events are free of charge to attend, but places are being allocated on a first-come first served basis.

Director of Regulation at the GSCC, Heather Wing, said
“These events are a real opportunity for domiciliary and residential social care workers working with adults, children and young people, employers of these workers and service users to have their say about how the registration process should work for them, as well as hearing details about what the GSCC are proposing. We will use the feedback we receive at these events and to the consultation document to help us make key decisions about matters such as entry requirements for registration, the level of the registration fee, how registration will be rolled out to these workers and to determine how the whole process will work overall. Therefore we encourage as many as possible from the social care workforce who are likely to be affected by these proposals to come along to the events taking place in their local area.”

“We would also like to take this opportunity to thank the huge number of people who have already responded to the consultation. Your feedback is highly valued.”

The consultation ends on 12 May 2006.