In hospitals all over the UK, the clocking-in point by the staff entrance is one of the least thought about equipment in the building. Staff pass it at the start and end of every shift, the data flows into HCM software and payroll – but nobody gives it much thought unless a punch is missing or a timesheet needs correcting.
However, two changes in the last eighteen months have made that data considerably more important for NHS trusts and independent healthcare providers alike.
The first is the drive to move temporary staffing away from agencies and onto internal staff banks. The second is a new legal duty, in force since April 2026, to keep detailed holiday records for every worker for six years, backed by a new enforcement body with the power to ask for them. Both depend on knowing, accurately and for every individual, how many hours were worked.
From Agency to Bank
NHS England’s planning guidance for 2025/26 asked trusts to cut agency spending by at least 30% and bank use by at least 10%, and the government has said it wants agency spending eliminated altogether. According to the Department of Health and Social Care, agency spend fell by almost £1 billion in 2024/25 from around £3 billion the year before, and NHS Professionals alone reported displacing more than £680 million of agency fees through its bank in the previous year.
But bank working brings its own timekeeping challenges. Bank staff often pick up shifts on different wards, at different sites and at short notice, and they are paid for the hours they work rather than a fixed contract. When the rate of a shift has been negotiated down and every trust is watching its temporary staffing budget, paying for exactly the hours worked, and being able to show how that figure was arrived at, matters a great deal more than it did when the same shift was simply invoiced by an agency.
Six Years of Holiday Records
The Employment Rights Act 2025 introduced a duty on all UK employers, from 6 April 2026, to keep adequate records showing that workers have received their statutory holiday entitlement and the correct holiday pay, including pay for untaken leave when someone leaves. Those records must be kept for six years, and failing to keep them is now a criminal offence. The Fair Work Agency, launched on 7 April 2026, will enforce holiday rights. Law firm Lewis Silkin notes that its holiday enforcement powers are not yet in place but will cover underpayments back to December 2025, and that where holiday pay has been underpaid the agency can add a penalty of up to 200% of the shortfall.
For healthcare employers, this connects directly with timekeeping. Since April 2024, workers on irregular hours (a group that can include many bank workers) build up statutory holiday at 12.07% of the hours they work in each pay period. The holiday record for those workers is only as accurate as the hours behind it, so a missed punch or an estimated timesheet becomes a holiday pay question as well as a pay question, and one that can now be examined six years later.
What Healthcare Employers Should Expect from Their Timeclocks
The rota, HR and payroll systems hold the rules on rates, breaks and holiday accrual, but the clocking-in point is where those rules meet the employee and where the worked hours are first captured. A few questions make a real difference to how much that record can be relied on.
- Does it capture the actual time? A terminal that records the exact clock-in and clock-out and passes it to your workforce management system unaltered gives payroll and holiday calculations a firm starting point. Punch rules applied at the terminal, such as preventing clock-ins well before a booked shift, help keep the record consistent with the rota.
- Can staff use the ID badge they already carry? Hospital staff use their badges for doors, drug cupboards and car parks, so a timeclock that reads existing card technology avoids issuing anything new. Biometric verification can be offered where an organisation wants it, with consent captured before anyone enrols, but it should always be optional.
- Does it keep up with a moving workforce? New starters, leavers and bank staff who work across several sites all need to be able to clock in at the right timeclocks from their first shift, and to stop being able to once they leave. That depends on employee records flowing automatically from the HR system to every device.
- Can IT manage and trust it? Across a trust with several hospitals and community sites, IT teams need to see the status of every terminal, apply updates and diagnose faults remotely, and review the security credentials of anything connected to the network.
How Grosvenor Technology supports healthcare employers
Grosvenor Technology has been designing time and attendance hardware in Poole, Dorset for more than 35 years. Our GT4, GT8 and GT10 terminals integrate with the workforce management and HR platforms used across UK healthcare, including Oracle, Workday, so the hours captured at the terminal go straight into the system that calculates pay and holiday. The terminals read a wide range of card and badge technologies, which means most organisations can keep the ID badges their staff already use, and fingerprint or facial verification is available as an option for those that choose it.
The terminals are managed through GTConnect, our integration and device management layer. GTConnect keeps employee records synchronised from your HR platform to every terminal, so a bank worker booked onto a shift at another site can clock in there without a manual set-up. Biometric consent is captured in your own time and attendance system before an employee record is created, with periodic re-consent. GTConnect also applies punch restrictions and attestation at the terminal, and it gives our UK-based support team advanced remote diagnostics, so most faults can be traced without a site visit.
If your organisation is reviewing how hours are recorded across its sites, or preparing for closer scrutiny of holiday records, we would be glad to talk it through. Just call 01202 621700 or email hcmsales@grosvenortechnology.com
This article is for general information only and does not constitute legal advice.