Introducing employment passports for nurses and other healthcare workers

In September 2019 NHS England announced that, after successful piloting, it was going to roll out NHS staff passports. This was one of the aims of the NHS Long Term Plan (NHS England and NHS Improvement (NHSI), 2019). The aim of the passports is to allow various grades of healthcare staff, and especially nurses, to work more freely in hospitals across the NHS at short notice without the need for mandatory 2-day inductions. Such inductions are expensive to implement and result in delays in the employment of staff. Electronic NHS passports are intended to help speed up the whole process of employing staff, and especially those who are bank or agency nurses (NHS England, 2019).

The primary aim of the passport initiative is to offer NHS staff opportunities to move to permanent or temporary positions without delays in starting duties. Ironically, it is these delays in the employment processes that can exacerbate the use of costly agency staff. Passport use seeks to offer NHS staff greater flexibility in allowing them to move as required from one organisation to another. Elements of staff employment that can slow down the process of hiring the right person include pre-employment checks, ascertaining whether mandatory and statutory training (MAST) is up-to-date, and the maintenance of an individual's appraisal and performance record to facilitate non-interruption of development pathways. If implemented well, the passport scheme should allow staff to move jobs within the NHS seamlessly. This will be helpful for those staff who operate as bank or agency nurses, for example, and for those who have rotational roles, such as trainee doctors.