Unlike nurse, midwives and doctors there is no system to regulate healthcare assistants, most of whom work in private care or nursing homes.

Critics say this means that although wrongdoing can be punished by individual employers, workers cannot be “struck off” and there is little to stop them getting a similar job in another home or hospital.

The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), the nursing standards watchdog, is currently considering how the industry might be regulated.

This could involve the NMC itself becoming a “super sized” regulator or the setting up of an entirely new body, if deemed necessary.

The organisation says that it fields calls every day from members of the public who want to report misconduct by healthcare assistants, but that it is powerless to act.

The NMC has also heard of nurses who have been struck off from its register and who have gone on to find jobs in homes as healthcare assistants, or healthcare support workers, as they are also known.

Prof Dickon Weir-Hughes, chief executive of the NMC, said: “If there is someone who is abusive to patients or who steals from patients, apart from dismissing them and giving them a bad reference, or reporting them to police, there is very little that can be done.

“There are questions regarding public protection. These are likely to increase as more and more activities previously undertaken by nurses and midwives are devolved to this unregulated part of the workforce.”

He added that the “biggest issue” is in the care home sector.

“In hospitals staff are well supervised in the main,” he said. “In care homes there is less supervision and a greater potential for risk.”

The NMC says that it is difficult even to estimate how many people currently work as healthcare assistants, as the majority work in the private sector, but some estimates put it as high as one million people.

Training is also extremely variable across the industry.

A recent survey by Nursing Standard magazine found that some assistants received just a two-day induction course while others were given up to three weeks training.

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