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FAQs

What action do OH staff need to take? 
Why are these changes happening?
What should I do now?
What will trusts need to do with their existing OHSC equipment and cards?
Will trusts be required to collect existing OHSC cards from doctors and medical students?
What is the Electronic Staff Record (ESR)?
How will the new system work?
What are the benefits of the new system?
What support will trusts get in implementing the new system?
Will there be any costs to trusts?
How will this new process streamline the pre-employment process?
Who will operate the new system?
How will medical staffing and OH staff get trained? 
When will the changes happen?
How will this impact on the August rotation?
Will the information be portable?
Will trusts be able to access OH records prior to appointment?
Will trusts be able to record all health professionals’ occupational health clearance data on ESR?
What will trusts need to do to obtain the graduating medical students occupational health clearance? 
How will locum doctors occupational health clearance be confirmed?
What happens when an employee moves to a new post or new organisation?
Will trusts have to upload all the existing data held on the OHSC system ?
Who will have access to the data on ESR? 
Can a member of staff get a print-out of their occupational health clearance data? 
What assurances will trusts have that the data is secure? 
Won’t this process just mean duplicate occupational health checks? 
Will this affect the existing links with the GMC? 
Isn’t there already a system to share information between ESR and the OHSC? 
How can trusts validate a doctor’s overall fitness to practice? 
What pre-employment advice is available for NHS organisations?

What action do OH staff need to take?
Staff who are currently using the OHSC system should continue to do so until they are informed that the new system is in place and fully functioning. 
New cards will continue to be issued until the end of May 2009, after this time no new cards will be issued.  TSSI who manage the current contract will maintain the OHSC system and should be contacted about any issues you may have with this system on 08450 707898.

Why are these changes happening?
At present trusts may hold up to date and accurate local records, but there is no current system in place to transfer occupational health medical clearance data as part of the pre-employment process (or other OH data) outside of the OHSC system.
The integration of the current OHSC into ESR will maximise the use of existing medical clearance OH data, and ensure its portability. It will also save time and reduce costs by removing unnecessary occupational health retesting / duplicate tests.

What should I do now?
Staff who are currently using the OHSC system should continue to do so until they are informed that the new system is in place and fully functioning.  New cards will continue to be issued until the end of May 2009, after this time no new cards will be issued. 
TSSI who manage the current contract will maintain the OHSC system until the end of October 2009 and should be contacted about any issues you may have with this system on 0845 707898.

What will trusts need to do with their existing OHSC equipment and cards?
Organisations should continue to use the current system until the new system is in place.  After this point they should arrange to return OHSC card issuing equipment to TSSI along with any un-issued cards.

Will trusts be required to collect existing OHSC cards from doctors and medical students?
No, trusts will not be required to do this. The OHSC cards will cease to function with the move to ESR. Advice will be provided to doctors and medical students on the secure disposal of the cards.

What is the Electronic Staff Record (ESR)?                        
ESR is an integrated Human Resource and Payroll solution that provides the master workforce system for the National Health Service (NHS) in England and Wales.   It has been fully deployed since April 2008 and delivers payroll services to the 1.3m NHS employees.

How will the new system work?
The existing OHSC system enabled trusts to validate the health clearance of a doctor, locum or medical student if their complete occupational health record was held on the OHSC database. With the new system, the occupational health clearance information will be held in a secure part of the Electronic Staff Record (ESR), and OH staff in trusts will be able to validate the information in the same way, but with the added advantage that this can be done at the pre-employment stage.

What are the benefits of the new system?
Availability
• Occupational health clearance data will be available to Occupational Health Departments prior to employment.
Quality improvements
• The data will be transferred electronically therefore reducing data entry and improving data quality.
Streamlining
• The electronic transfer of data reduces the necessity to repeat immunisation/vaccination checks, improving the working lives of staff, streamlining the recruitment process and saving costs.
Safety Improvements
• Portable data that is accurate, up to date and available, improves patient safety, streamlines the recruitment process, and improves the working lives of staff.

What support will trusts get in implementing the new system?
The implementation is being supported by DH, NHS Employers and the ESR Central Team.  
A series of ESR training workshops and e-learning CDs are being developed, details of which will be released shortly. Questions can be raised to NHS Employers during the implementation by emailing ohsc@nhsemployers.org  and any technical ESR related issued can be raised via Remedy (McKesson’s issue resolution management system).

Will there be any costs to trusts?                            
No, this is all covered by the ESR contract.

How will this new process streamline the pre-employment process?
ESR enables occupational health clearance information to transfer between trusts electronically in advance of commencement of employment within the bounds of the NHS Employment Check Standards published in March 2008. 
It will provide:
o the capacity to transfer previous occupational health clearance data to new/prospective NHS employers
o the capacity for OH to access this data whilst the individual is still an applicant
o the capacity to hold the occupational health data securely and ensure that only OH staff with clearance to view the applicants data are able to do so
o it joins up the pre-employment process, allowing the HR and OH components to work together.

Who will operate the new system?
HR & OH Personnel will operate the new system.   HR Departments already utilise ESR for recruitment and HR processes, it is important to note that only Occupational Health personnel with the correct clearance will be able to access a OH record.

How will medical staffing and OH staff get trained?
ESR are planning a series of training workshops which will be held from mid-July to end September 2009, they are also developing e-learning CDs for desk training.   Information about the training workshops and CDs will be made available in June.

When will the changes happen?
A pilot is taking place throughout June and July 2009 with all organisations going live at the beginning of October 2009.   More information about this process will be available from ESR nearer the go-live date.

How will this impact on the August rotation?
The timing of the implementation has been planned to ensure that it doesn’t affect the rotation.   

Will the information be portable?                                
Records will be held in the secure OH area within ESR and will be portable in the same way as ESR HR data.
All the occupational health clearance data that is currently held on OHSC will be recorded in ESR, this covers the detailed immunisations and the overall occupational health clearance status. Only OH Departments will be able to view this sensitive data.

Will trusts be able to access OH records prior to appointment?
Yes, the OH Clearance data will be transferred from the current employer to the prospective/new employer at the pre-employment stage. This will use a similar process to the existing ESR Inter Authority Transfer process that allows HR data to be moved as an employee transfers to a new organisation.

Will trusts be able to record all health professionals’ occupational health clearance data on ESR?
Yes, the functionality is not limited to a particular staff group.

What will trusts need to do to obtain the graduating medical students occupational health clearance?
Only records for employees working within an NHS organisation will be transferred to ESR. All student data will need to be keyed into ESR by the first employing organisation including graduating students with OHSC cards. This is the same procedure that needs to be followed for any employees who are new to the NHS.
Although the data is not electronically transferable from the Medical Colleges, the initial entry of the employee’s occupational health clearance record is a one off exercise and the data will automatically transfer with the employee as s/he moves between organisations within the NHS.  

How will locum doctors occupational health clearance be confirmed?
Locums will be treated in the same way as permanent staff with the OH Clearance data being transferred from the current employer.

What happens when an employee moves to a new post or new organisation?
If the employee moves to another organisation then the occupational health clearance data will be transferred as part of the modified Inter Authority Transfer process.
If the employee moves to a new post within the same organisation then the data is still available as it is held at employee level in ESR i.e. the data is held against the person record rather than against the job record.

Will trusts have to upload all the existing data held on the OHSC system ?
No, the data from the OHSC will be migrated to ESR prior to go-live.   Only records that   have mismatching keys (e.g. the record on OHSC is different from that held on ESR) will need to be keyed in manually.
Data Migration experts will be on hand to ensure that as much data as possible is migrated to ESR.   For any records that have mismatching keys, organisations will be given the choice to correct the data on OHSC (so that the records can be loaded electronically) or to manually enter the records on ESR.

Who will have access to the data on ESR?                       
Access to ESR is controlled by User Responsibility Profiles (URPs), a new URP will be created in ESR to restrict access to the occupational health clearance data. As with the current OHSC system, the access to occupational health clearance data will be restricted to OH personnel. They will need to be allocated the new URP to access the occupational health clearance data.

Can a member of staff get a print-out of their occupational health clearance data?
Yes but the data can only be printed by those with the right access i.e. OH Personnel

What assurances will trusts have that the data is secure?
OH personnel will be granted access to the new ESR URP by dedicated system administrators within each organisation.   No other parties will have the ability to view the data or to give access to others.

Won’t this process just mean duplicate occupational health checks?
No, the OH checks will still need to be performed as part of the pre-employment process but the transfer of data will reduce the unnecessary revaccinations and immunisation checks that currently occur.

Will this affect the existing links with the GMC?
No, there will still be an interface between the GMC and ESR to identify where the GMC registration status has changed/expired.

Isn’t there already a system to share information between ESR and the OHSC?
The interface between the ESR system and the OHSC system enables the transfer of HR data to take place, avoiding the need for HR/Medical staffing units to input data on to the OHSC system when it is currently held on the ESR system.
A similar interface is already available to interface data from ESR to other OH systems such as Cohort and OPAS.
There is now also an interface between ESR and the General Medical Council (GMC), the live feed of registration information and alerts are now collected by HR/Medical staffing units via ESR, which also records all other HR and Payroll information.

How can trusts validate a doctor’s overall fitness to practice?      
Trusts should satisfy themselves that they are fully meeting the requirements set out in NHS Employment Check Standards and that they are recording the outcome of the pre-employment checks within the ESR system.

What pre-employment advice is available for NHS organisations?
In March 2008, NHS Employers published NHS Employment Check Standards covering the six mandatory Employment Checks: verification of identity, right to work, registration and qualification, employment history and references, Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) and occupational health checks.