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Occupational Health Smart Cards (OHSC) - Implementation History

The Department of Health has decided to integrate the current Occupational Health Smart Card (OHSC) system for managing doctors’ occupational health clearance into the Electronic Staff Record (ESR).

Background

This decision followed an options appraisal and the new system will enable occupational health clearance information to be recorded and electronically transferred between organisations as part of the pre-employment process.
The new system is an improvement as it will make occupational health (OH) clearance data available to OH departments prior to employment and help to streamline the OH pre-employment process.
As with the Occupational Health Smart Card (OHSC) system, the OH data will be held securely and confidentially. Only OH staff with clearance to view the applicants’ data are able to do so. Staff using ESR are already familiar with, and meeting, the highest level in IT best practice.

Links

FAQs 
Implementation Steps – more details to follow
Training Events
OHSC Data Cleansing

Engagement events

NHS Employers held a series of four workshops in June 2009 to discuss the changes with the NHS staff affected by them.  Below are the presentations given at these events

Part 1: ESR & Implementation of OH Clearance Functionality

Part 2: ESR OH Clearance Functionality

Part 3: Implementation of OH Clearance in ESR

Training Events

South Central   Date:     Monday 27th July Time:    9.30am – 1.00pm   To register, contact james.white3@nhs.net	Venue:      The Regency Park Hotel                 Regency Park Hotel                 Bowling Green Lane                 Thatcham                 Berkshire                 RG18 3RP
South West   Date:     Wednesday 29th July Time:    2.00pm – 4.30pm   To register, contact dympna.bell@dh.gsi.gov.uk	Venue:      Taunton Rugby Club                 Hyde Park                 Hyde Lane                 Bathpool                 Taunton                 Somerset                 TA2 8BU
London   Date:     Friday 31st July 2009 Time:    9.30am – 1.00pm   To register, contact louise.frost@dh.gsi.gov.uk	Venue:      Robens Suite                 29th Floor                 Guys Tower                 Guys & St Thomas NHS Trust                 Great Maze Pond                 London                 SE1 9RT
North West   Date:     Monday 7th & 14th September 2009 Time:    10.00am – 1.00pm   To register, go to http://www.esrsupport.co.uk/nw/	Venue:      The Lancaster Suite                 Haydock Park Racecourse                 Newton-le- Willows                                   Merseyside                  WA12 0HQ
East Midlands   Date:     Wednesday 9th September 2009 Time:    10.00am – 3.00pm   To register, contact claire.flavin@dh.gsi.gov.uk	Venue:      Chatsworth Room                 Holiday Inn                 Bostocks Lane                 Sandiacre                 Derby                 NG10 4EP
North East   Date:     Thursday 10th September 2009 Time:    9.00am – 1.00pm   To register, contact steve.brown@dh.gsi.gov.uk	Venue:      Cobalt Conference Centre                 Northumbria Healthcare NHS Trust                 Northumbria House                 7/8 Silver Fox Way                 Cobalt Business Park                 North Shields                 Tyne and Wear                 NE27 0QJ
Yorkshire & Humber   Date:     Tuesday 15th September 2009 Time:    10.00am – 1.00pm   To register, contact gordon.pearce@nhs.net	Venue:      Pontefract Racecourse                 Pontefract Park                 Pontefract                 West Yorkshire                 WF8 4RA
South East Coast   Date:     Friday 18th September 2009 Time:    9.30am   To register, contact peter.crowe@southeastcoast.nhs.uk	Venue:      Gatwick Worth Hotel                 Crabbet Park                 Turners Hill Road                 Worth                 West Sussex                 RH10 4ST
West Midlands   Date:     Monday 21st September 2009 Time:    1.30pm   To register, go to www.mybookingcalendar.com/westmidsesr	Venue:      Lecture Theatre                  Clinical Sciences Building                 University Hospital of Coventry &                 Warwickshire                 Clifford Bridge Road                 Walsgrave                 Coventry                 CV2 2DX
East of England   Date:    Tuesday 22nd September 2009 Time:   10.00am – 1.00pm   To register, go to http://events.eoe.nhs.uk/all	Venue:      Menzies Hotel and Gold Club                 Bar Hill                 Cambridge                 CB23 8EU

 

Data Cleansing

As you will be aware, the Department of Health has decided to integrate the current Occupational Health Smart Card (OHSC) system for managing Doctors occupational health clearance into the Electronic Staff Record (ESR).  Outcome data (whether an individual has been cleared for employment, which infectious diseases they have been successfully immunised against or screened for) will, in future, be entered on the employee’s ESR entry. The new ESR functionality is an improvement as it will make this occupational health (OH) clearance data available to OH departments prior to employment and help to streamline the OH pre-employment process.

 

As with the Occupational Health Smart Card (OHSC) system, the OH data will be held securely and confidentially. Only OH staff with clearance to view the applicants’ data will be able to do so. 

 

Prior to the closure of the OHSC system, all data from this system will be automatically transferred to ESR. This transfer is planned for October 2009.

Analysis of this data has shown that some 3000 OHSC records will fail to migrate as they cannot be matched with any Employee record in ESR. If these records are not amended to match prior to go-live then OH departments will have to enter these directly into ESR following go-live. To avoid this, we strongly recommend that OH Departments cleanse the necessary data fields in the OHSC system so that the record can be migrated and therefore avoiding the need to enter the records directly on to ESR.

 

The ESR Team can help you identify which OHSC records will not migrate so that they can be amended prior to go live in October. If you would like that information then please contact Julie Sim on Julie.sim@nhs.net to both confirm your organisational role and request that these details are provided to you securely.

Date added: 14 October 2009

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