Hi Suffolk,
When advertising for staff you should always issue a job description along side the vacancy.
It is considered best practice to send brief details of the job, rates of pay, holidays, hours, start times etc to any succesful applicant. You should also issue your new employee full details of your procedures through a staff handbook or similair, followed by checking their details (bank, employment status etc). This followed by an induction procedure to include H & S, Coshh, introduction to site etc.
Again best practice dictates that all documentation, including the employment contract should be issued to your employee before work starts on their first day, this helps protect all parties and avoids any dispute. Verbal instruction, might be considered sufficient, but then again in front of an employment tribunal, it might not!
In this particular case, I would be perhaps tempted to agree with Darren! (assuming that your contract has been properly drawn up in the first place).
Regards,
Rob