A care worker turns up with an enhanced DBS certificate from a previous job and asks why you need another one. If they are on the DBS Update Service, you may not. A status check takes a minute online and can put a vetted person on shift two weeks sooner than a fresh application. This is how a recruiter uses the service properly.
What the DBS Update Service is
The Update Service is a subscription run by the Disclosure and Barring Service. A worker with a standard or enhanced certificate pays £16 a year to keep it live, and an employer with the worker's permission can check online whether anything has changed since the certificate was issued. Volunteers subscribe for free. The figures and rules below are from the GOV.UK Update Service pages and the DBS employer guide, September 2026.
The worker has to join within 30 days of the certificate being issued, or during the application itself, in which case DBS has to receive the subscription within 28 days. Miss that window and the certificate cannot be added later. So the first question to ask any care worker who arrives with a certificate is whether they subscribed at the time, not whether they would like to now.
The five things you must have before you run a status check
The DBS employer guide sets five conditions and a status check without them is not a check at all.
You must have seen the original paper certificate in person at some point since it was issued. A photograph, a scan or a copy held up on a video call does not count. This is the one recruiters skip most, and it matters most, because the status check tells you whether the certificate has changed, not what is on it.
You must have checked the worker's identity to the DBS standard, either when the certificate was first applied for or before the status check.
You must have the worker's consent. Get it in writing and keep it on the file.
The certificate must be at the level you are legally entitled to ask for in this role. For care work in regulated activity with adults, that means enhanced with a check of the adults' barred list. An enhanced certificate without the barred list check, or a standard certificate from a previous office job, does not become the right one because the worker is on the Update Service.
The workforce on the certificate must match the role. A certificate issued for the child workforce does not cover an adult care placement, and the other way round. Look at the workforce line on the certificate before you start.
If any of the five is missing, you apply for a new check. The GOV.UK guidance is blunt on this point and so is CQC when it comes to inspect.
How to run the check and what the result means
The check is on the GOV.UK Update Service employer page. You enter your organisation name, your own name, the certificate number, the worker's current surname and their date of birth. There is no fee for the employer.
There are four possible results. The first says the certificate did not reveal any information and remains current. The second says the certificate remains current as no further information has been identified since issue, which is the wording you see when the original certificate did contain something, so go back to that original and read it. The third says the certificate is no longer current and you should apply for a new check, and that is the end of the shortcut. The fourth says the details do not match, usually a typing error or a change of surname, so check and try once more.
Save the result with the date and time in the worker's compliance file beside the consent. An inspector, or a client's compliance team, will want to see the chain, not just the word "checked" in a spreadsheet.
Run the check again when it counts
A status check is a snapshot. Most care agencies run one at registration and again on a fixed cycle, often every six or twelve months, and some clients ask for one before each new placement. Pick a cycle, write it into your process and record each date. Subscriptions lapse mid placement because workers forget to renew, and the only way you will find out is by checking.
If a status check shows the certificate is no longer current, the worker comes off shift until a new enhanced certificate is back. That can take around 14 days, sometimes longer where more than one police force is involved, and a new application costs £49.50 for an enhanced check or £21.50 for a standard one. Tell the client that rather than promising a start date you cannot keep.
Where the Update Service does not help
The service does not replace the rest of the file. Right to work, references, training records and identity evidence are separate checks with their own rules, and CQC's Regulation 19 expects all of them for anyone working in a registered service. Our guides on right to work checks for care staff and reference checks for care staff cover the two that most often hold a start date up.
It does not cover a certificate that was never subscribed, an expired subscription, or a certificate at the wrong level or workforce. In all of those cases you are applying for a new check, and if your organisation does fewer than 100 checks a year you will be doing that through an umbrella body rather than directly with DBS.
And it does not tell you what is on the certificate. Only the original does. If the original has content, the decision about whether the person is suitable is yours, made on a documented risk assessment, not the Update Service's.
What to do this week
Look at the last ten care workers you registered. For each one on the Update Service, the file should show a note that the original certificate was seen in person, the identity check, written consent and the saved status result with a date. Where one is missing, get it now while the worker is still on your books. It is an hour's work, and it is the hour an inspector will spend on the same files.
Flamingo Workforce supplies vetted support workers, nurses and care team leaders across the UK, with every compliance file shared with the client before a first shift. If you would rather we did the checking, get in touch through flamingoworkforce.com.