So many families go through the same moment. A new carer arrives, someone you found through a friend of a friend or a local Facebook group or a care agency you called in a hurry. You ask to see their DBS certificate. They hand it over, or they show you a photo on their phone. It looks official. It has a number on it. You feel like you have done your due diligence, and honestly, given how much else you are managing right now, that feels like enough.

It is not quite enough. And that is not your fault for not knowing. Nobody explains this bit.

A DBS certificate is a snapshot. It tells you what the Disclosure and Barring Service found on the day the check was run. If something changed the day after, the certificate still looks exactly the same. A carer could hand you a certificate from three years ago that was clean then and carries no new concerns today. Or it could be clean then and the situation has changed since. You have no way of knowing from the piece of paper itself.

This is where the DBS Update Service comes in, and it is genuinely useful once you understand it.

What the DBS Update Service actually is

The Update Service, run by the Disclosure and Barring Service and described on gov.uk, is a subscription a worker can sign up to when they apply for their enhanced DBS certificate. It costs twelve pounds a year. What it does is keep their certificate current, so that instead of a frozen snapshot, the certificate is connected to a live record.

The important part for families: if a carer is subscribed to the Update Service, you can check their certificate yourself, online, for free, right now. Not the certificate number alone, not a photo on a phone. You run a check using their certificate number and their consent, and gov.uk tells you whether the certificate is still accurate, or whether there has been a change that would mean a new check is needed.

This takes about two minutes. The link is on gov.uk and we have put it in the useful links below.

If the certificate is still current, the check will confirm that. If something has changed, it will flag that a new check is needed. You do not see the detail of what changed. You just see that the certificate you are looking at is no longer accurate.

The one question worth asking

So the question that actually matters is not 'can I see your DBS certificate?' It is: 'are you subscribed to the DBS Update Service, and can I run a check now?'

A carer who answers yes to both of those things is giving you something far more valuable than a paper certificate. They are giving you a route to verify that the record is live and current at the point of care, not just on the day they first applied.

A carer who does not know what the Update Service is, or who says they are not subscribed, is not necessarily hiding anything. Plenty of good carers simply were not told about it, or let it lapse because they moved between jobs and nobody prompted them to renew. But it is worth knowing that the subscription has to be taken out within thirty days of the DBS certificate being issued. If that window passed without the worker subscribing, the certificate cannot be retroactively enrolled. A new enhanced DBS check would be required.

If you are arranging care through any kind of formal arrangement, whether through a care agency or an introductory agency, it is entirely reasonable to ask what their process is around the Update Service. The Care Quality Commission expects providers to have robust safeguarding processes, and the Homecare Association's code of practice points to ongoing vetting, not just a one-time check at hire. A good arrangement has a process here. It does not just rely on a certificate the carer got years ago.

What if the carer is not subscribed?

You have a couple of routes. You can ask them to apply for a new enhanced DBS check and subscribe to the Update Service at the point of application. This takes a few weeks and costs the worker nothing if they apply through a registered body. Some agencies absorb the cost; some pass it to the carer. Worth asking who pays.

Alternatively, you can contact the Carers UK Helpline on 0808 808 7777 or the Age UK advice line on 0800 678 1602 to talk through the broader picture of setting up care arrangements safely. Neither organisation has a commercial stake in who you choose. They can help you think through what questions to ask.

Hibant, as one option, checks every carer's DBS status as part of our vetting process before we introduce them to a family. But however you arrange care, the Update Service question is worth asking of anyone.

If you would rather not piece this together on your own, this is exactly the kind of situation we exist for. We are a London introductory care agency. Every carer we introduce to a family has been DBS-checked and insurance-verified before the introduction happens, and you meet the carer in person before any arrangement begins. You choose the carer yourself, and you have a direct relationship with them. If you want to talk through vetting, or anything else about setting up care that feels safe, you can email us at hello@hibantcare.com or visit hibantcare.com.

The one thing to do tomorrow morning: go to gov.uk and look up the DBS Update Service check link. It takes two minutes. If your carer is subscribed, run it with their consent and their certificate number in front of you. If they are not subscribed, you now know what to ask about next.

Hibant

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