Smartcards for temporary staff and visitors

Many organisations will have a number of temporary staff requiring smartcards. Additionally, some organisations will have formal visits that may involve requiring access, such as CQC inspections.  

Whilst some of this is planned, such as student intakes, sometimes it happens at short notice and organisations need to consider how identity and access requirements are managed to ensure service continuity and good governance (including meeting NHS Care Record Guarantee requirements).

Bank staff

Bank staff are permanent employees of an organisation, so a large number of them should already have smartcards. If not, they should undergo necessary identity checks at the point of registering with the bank. They will then be provided with a smartcard.

Agency staff and locums

We are aware of the problems that organisations face when trying to give access to agency and locum staff, especially out of hours.

Whilst we know the difficulties, it's important to remember that the purpose of a locum being registered for a smartcard is to meet NHS Employers mandated requirement and the NHS Care Record Guarantee commitment.

The requirement is to be able to identify, beyond reasonable doubt, a locum or other agency member of staff.

The following options exist for giving smartcards to locums

Registration Authorities are advised to review these and adopt the approach that best suits their local circumstance if necessary. This should then be documented in their local operating policy.

Some organisations have collaborated to provide open registration sessions. All agencies used have been contacted and advised of session dates and document requirements. Potential agency and locum staff then attend the session and are registered and issued with a smartcard. Access profiles are not necessary at that time.

Some staffing agencies complete the NHS Employers required checks and ensure required e-Learning is completed (primarily, but not exclusively, to sites using Cerner).  The Registration Authority team may train and appoint suitable agency staff conducting these ID checks to be registered as RA-ID Checkers and complete the new user registration form, available in the process guidance document. This and an approved photo, taken at the same time of the ID review, are then emailed to the local Registration Authority, who registers the user on Care Identity Management and produces the card. This will be ready for when the locum arrives.

In exceptional circumstances (lateness of booking or short notice), if a locum then presented with the required ID documentation to an appropriate RA-ID checker staff member at the organisation out of hours, they could check the documentation and complete a new user request form for priority registration the next day.

The locum may then be given an appropriate Temporary Access Card and their details will be entered into the audit log.

In order for this process to be acceptable the card must be returned the following day, as soon as the registration can be completed. Failure to do so must result in the Temporary Access Card being immediately de-activated.

NHS Digital is developing its audit capability in relation to Temporary Access Cards, and will be investigating usage across the service at regular intervals and dealing with any inappropriate access.

Many organisations offer placements for a variety of students, such as junior doctors. There are 3 alternatives for verifying identity and granting access to students.

Some organisations have collaborated to provide open registration sessions. All education establishments used have been contacted and advised of session dates and document requirements. Students then attend the session and are registered and issued with a smartcard. Access profiles are not necessary at this time.

Some educational establishments complete the NHS Employers required checks. The Registration Authority team may then train and appoint suitable education establishment staff conducting these ID checks to be registered as RA-ID checkers and complete the new user registration form, available in the process guidance document.

This and an approved photo, taken at the same time of the ID review, are emailed to the local Registration Authority, who registers the user on Care Identity Management and produces the card. The card will be ready when the student arrives.

Organisations run formal induction processes for students. As part of this induction, identities are verified and smartcards printed for students.

NHS Digital have been contacted by a number of organisations over recent months regarding smartcard enabled access to records requested as part of a CQC inspection.  

A number of organisations have operated different approaches, some of which have put Registration Authorities in a difficult situation regarding governance. The following guidance has been agreed specifically with CQC, but offers a good template for other short notice inspections.

Where an inspection visit requires access to smartcard enabled systems the only way a CQC inspector, as an individual, can do this is by becoming registered for a smartcard and granted appropriate access as per normal Registration Authority processes. 

However where a CQC inspector is reluctant to provide such information, CQC have agreed that no card should be issued and the provider must facilitate their lawful access to records in another way.

If an inspector has their own smartcard, they should bring it with them and the appropriate access profiles should be assigned and subsequently removed upon authorisation in accordance to local Registration Authority policy.