Quality Support Staff for Your Care Settings
Our dedicated team connects highly skilled and compassionate support staff with hospitals, clinics, care homes, and other healthcare settings. From nursing homes and residential care to supported living and community settings, we supply reliable people who put person-centred care first.
What We Provide
- ✓Qualified Support Staff
- ✓Flexible Staffing Solutions
- ✓Rigorous Recruitment Process
- ✓Personalised Matching
Whether you need a single shift covered or a fully managed rota, our support workers are experienced across nursing homes, residential care, supported living and community settings, with seven-day booking support and urgent, short-notice cover available.
Roles and Settings We Cover
We supply healthcare assistants, care assistants, senior carers and support workers across nursing and residential homes, supported living and shared houses, hospices, NHS trusts and private hospitals, community services and domiciliary providers. Senior and team leader cover is available where a shift needs someone who can lead a floor, handle medication rounds and manage handover rather than simply make up numbers. Where a shift also needs clinical cover, we can supply from the same booking through our nursing, mental health and learning disability teams.
What We Check Before Anyone Starts
Every worker completes and can evidence an enhanced DBS check, kept current wherever possible through the DBS Update Service; right-to-work verification in line with Home Office guidance, including sponsorship status where relevant; mandatory training mapped to the Care Certificate and the relevant frameworks; occupational health clearance with an up-to-date immunisation record; and references covering recent employment, with any gaps explained. Ask for a full compliance file for a worker and we will produce the evidence itself, not an assurance that it exists.
This is not box-ticking. In England the Care Quality Commission inspects against the fundamental standards set out in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014, and safe recruitment sits squarely within them. Every worker we send becomes part of your regulated service, so if a check is missing the risk lands on you, not on us. Employment agencies and employment businesses are separately governed by the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003. Protocol Healthcare Services Ltd is REC affiliated and an FSB member.
Matching on Competency, Not Just Availability
A shift covered by the right number of people but the wrong blend of skills is not safely staffed. Tell us the setting, the dependency of the people being supported, whether the shift includes moving and handling, personal care, medication administration, catheter or stoma support, dementia care or end-of-life support, and whether driving is required. We book against those competencies and confirm named workers in advance, with a brief before they arrive so they are not learning your service from scratch at handover.
How Bookings and Cover Work
Our consultants are contactable seven days a week, Monday to Friday from 8am to 8pm and weekends from 10am to 9pm, and can often fill urgent and last-minute shifts, including nights, evenings, weekends and bank holidays. If a worker cannot attend, we tell you as soon as we know and work on a replacement rather than leaving you to find out at the start of the shift. For longer arrangements we build a small, regular pool who know your service, because continuity reduces induction time, protects residents' routines and is the clearest indicator that agency cover is working rather than simply happening.
Temporary, Block Booking or Permanent
Most well-run services settle on a permanent core, an internal bank for predictable absence, and an agency partner for the rest. Temporary cover suits sickness, annual leave, vacancies awaiting recruitment and sudden rises in acuity. Block and fixed-term bookings suit a known period of extra need, such as an outbreak or a refurbishment, and give continuity without a permanent commitment. Permanent placement is a one-off recruitment service: we source, screen and present candidates, and you employ the successful one on your own terms.
How We Quote, and What We Will Not Do
We quote per assignment rather than publishing a rate card, because rates depend on role, setting, shift time and notice given. Every quote is itemised. A charge rate covers the worker's wage, employer National Insurance, holiday pay and pension, the cost of vetting and mandatory training, and our operating margin, with uplifts for nights, weekends, bank holidays and short-notice bookings. Judge that alongside the fill rate, because an unfilled shift carries its own cost in overtime and risk. We will not place a worker whose experience does not match the brief simply to fill a gap, and we will tell you when we cannot cover a shift rather than leaving it open.
Read More
- ✓The complete healthcare staffing guide for UK providers →
- ✓All our staffing services →
- ✓Areas we cover →
Need support worker cover for a specific rota? Talk to our consultants and we will come back with named, evidenced availability.
Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know about working with Protocol Healthcare Services. Can't find your answer? Our team is always happy to help.
Contact UsYes. Alongside shift-by-shift cover we take block and fixed-term bookings for a known period of extra need, such as an outbreak or a refurbishment, which gives continuity of the same familiar workers without a permanent commitment. Most well-run services settle on a permanent core, an internal bank for predictable absence and an agency partner for the rest, and we are content to be that third part rather than the whole rota.
Mandatory training is mapped to the Care Certificate and the relevant frameworks, typically covering safeguarding, moving and handling, infection prevention and control and basic life support, with the exact list depending on the role and setting. We evidence what a worker has actually completed and when, rather than assuming it from a CV, so if a particular course is essential in your service say so at booking and we will only put forward people who hold it.
Yes. Our consultants take bookings seven days a week and can often fill last-minute shifts, including nights, evenings, weekends and bank holidays. Tell us whether the shift is a waking night or a sleep-in, how many staff are on the floor overnight and what the escalation route is, because a night with one worker on duty needs someone more experienced than a busy day shift with a full team, not less.
We book against competency, not availability. Tell us the setting, the dependency of the people being supported, and whether the shift involves moving and handling with specific equipment, personal care, medication administration, catheter or stoma support, dementia care or end-of-life support, and whether driving is required. We match on that, confirm named workers in advance and brief them before they arrive, and we will not place a worker whose experience does not match the brief simply to fill a gap.
Yes. Senior and team leader cover is available where a shift needs someone who can lead a floor, handle a medication round and manage handover rather than simply make up numbers. Say at the point of booking that the shift carries that responsibility, because the competencies we match on and the evidence we ask for are different from a general care shift.
Yes. We supply into community services and domiciliary providers alongside nursing and residential homes, supported living, hospices, NHS trusts and private hospitals. Community and domiciliary work is largely lone working, so tell us whether a driver with their own vehicle is needed, the geography of the round and the call times, and we will match against that rather than send someone who can only work a static rota.
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