A NEW "portable" criminal-records check will be brought in this year by the Home Office, to speed up recruitment and cut costs.

The change will mean that people who volunteer for different organisations, and those with more than one job, will no longer have to make multiple CRB applications.

Instead, they will have to apply only once to the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) for a certificate, and then can go online to find out whether their existing certificate is still up to date. Paid employees will have to pay a small fee for the certificate, but it will be free for volunteers.

The DBS is intended to speed up the recruitment process, and to save organisations time and money.

The Home Office cited junior and locum doctors as one group of employees who would benefit from the service, as they would previously have had to apply for a new CRB check every time they moved hospital.

Child protection. A new child-protection system will log every child who visits Accident and Emergency, or an out-of-hours doctor, in a national database, from 2015. This system will enable doctors and nurses to check whether a child has been repeatedly brought in for medical treatment - an indicator of abuse or neglect.