A new registration scheme for 200,000 domiciliary care workers, due to be launched next year, will bring benefits to recruiters in the sector, a Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) conference has heard.

Mike Wardle, chief executive of the General Social Care Council, told the audience at 'A Fair Price for Care' that the scheme would help recruiters in several ways: agencies would be able to check a worker's registration online; raised self-esteem of domiciliary staff would improve the quality of service that agencies provide; and portable registration would cut administration and allow workers to move easily between different agencies.

Mark Hathaway, managing director of National Locums Group, in Hull, said that registration would raise the profile and the prestige of the domiciliary care workforce in the same way as a similar scheme did for nurses. "This will have a positive knock-on effect on service users, and by raising standards will hopefully reduce the number of issues raised by them [the service users]," he added.

However, Popi Galani, division manager at People Unlimited, said the majority of workers in the sector would see the scheme as just "another registration, and another fee".

"A lot more work needs to be done to raise the profile of workers in the sector, and I don't see this being achieved by more checks carried out before they can work," she said.

Under the scheme, each worker would pay £20 a year and be responsible for ensuring their own training, and for notifying the GSCC of any criminal convictions picked up while employed. It is planned to extend the scheme to the UK's 500,000 residential care workers.