A national postal strike will delay placements due to a slowdown in the processing of Criminal Record Bureau (CRB) checks, according to health and social care recruiters.

Yesterday, further legislation came into force which obliges recruiters to notify the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) of any ‘relevant information’ about candidates in ‘regulated activities’ who may pose a risk to children or vulnerable adults.

Last week, the Communication Workers Union voted in favour of a national postal strike in protest over pay cuts and work changes.

Ian MacDougall, director at healthcare recruiter Castlerock, told Recruiter: “There is going to be slowdown in receiving the CRB disclosures. There is physically no other way of processing them. It is going to delay placements because cannot place candidates without the disclosure.”

Bernie Gough, director at social work and healthcare staffing firm Colbern, says: “We meet all our candidates and go through all the CRB checks. Once we have verified the candidate, we send it to an umbrella company, they send it on to the CRB. We can’t place people without a CRB check. We have to see the original documents. We cannot check disclosures online but we can track the process.”

Richard Halsall, partner at umbrella company UK CRBs, adds: “There is nothing we can do - we just have to live with it. We can fill out the forms locally. The best method with the postal strikes is to fill out the forms locally so there is no postage required. If the postal strike gets any worse, we would hand deliver those forms to the CRB.”

Chris Knowles, contracts manager at Mediplacements, says: “This does not impact those that are already registered with us because we reapply for our CRBs well in advance. But for those new registrations, it will slow down supply.”