All pre-registration programmes are exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, under the provisions of the Exemptions Order 1975. This means that you will be obliged to declare all previous criminal convictions, cautions and reprimands as a condition of admission on to the programme.
Having a previous criminal conviction or caution will not necessarily prohibit you from studying to be a Nurse, Midwife, Optometrist, Radiographer, Radiotherapist or Speech and Language Therapist.
It is however important for City, University of London to establish a balanced and objective view about a candidate's suitability to train.
In order to verify this we use the Disclosure and Barring Service checks; it is therefore a mandatory condition of entry on to any pre-registration Healthcare programme in Speech and Language Therapy, Radiography, Optometry, Midwifery or Nursing that an applicant must have a satisfactory Enhanced DBS clearance.
This will document information in the form of a criminal record certificate as described under either section 113 or section 115 of the Police Act 1997.
City, University of London welcomes applications to courses from all members of the community but cannot consider applications for specific health care programmes from those individuals who have committed offences under the provisions of the Protection of Children Act 1999 and the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000.
It should also be noted that this prohibition also extends to individuals who have had their name included on the Protection of Vulnerable Adults (POVA) List, Protection of Children Act (PoCA) List as held by the Department of Health and List 99 as held by the Department of Education, Skills and Employment.
To do so would be a criminal offence under the aforementioned acts. Furthermore, in receiving an application from any such individual, The School is obliged to inform the Police that an application from a prohibited individual has been received.
In order to make informed decisions about an individual's suitability to train, a Countersignatory will invite the applicant to submit a DBS application form before further advancement of the individual's application to study.
The covering letter will explain that in observance of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (ROA 1974), The School is inviting the applicant to submit a DBS form so that the relevant staff can make an informed decision about the suitability of an individual to train. If necessary an interview would be held prior to induction, which will allow the individual to put the information revealed in a Disclosure into context.
In accordance with the DBS code of practice, City, University of London has the following policies on the recruitment of ex-offenders and the use, storage, retention and destruction of DBS disclosure information.