Training certificate required for new care workers from March 2015

New care workers will have to earn a training certificate within 12 weeks of starting a job.

The certificate, which is being piloted across England this summer, will be introduced in in March 2015 for care workers, including hospital healthcare assistants.

Topics will include infection control, dementia care and patient dignity, as well as communication skills. Achievement of the Care Certificate should ensure that the support worker has the required values, behaviours, competencies and skills to provide high quality, compassionate care.

Its development follows an independent review, in the wake of the Stafford Hospital scandal a few years ago, which highlighted inconsistencies in training.

As reported in a recent BBC One Breakfast interview, care minister Norman Lamb said it was "essential that we drive up standards", adding: "There's lots of great care out there but there are too many cases of care falling down."

He also confirmed that the responsibility for the certificate would "rest with employers and I think that's where the training responsibility should lie".

Dr Shereen Hussein, an expert in social care at King's College London, welcomed the introduction of "a consistent certificate".

"However, if that is relying on what has been delivered in individual providers and the standards are not being accredited or assured, maybe that will not mean much," she told BBC One's Breakfast.

"My concern would be, yes it's great to have a consistent and portable certificate that ensures a minimum standard, but then we need something in place to assure that it is delivered at that higher standard and that it is portable between providers."

Across England, there are more than a million care workers, many of whom look after vulnerable and elderly people in their own homes or in residential care.