HR software for care homes, built around the staff file you have to produce

The file you cannot find

An inspector asks for one staff member. Not a difficult one, not a leaver, just a care assistant who has been with you three years. They would like to see the training record and the right to work check.

The training is in a spreadsheet, which is mostly current, although the tab was last updated by a deputy manager who left in the spring. The right to work copy is in the filing cabinet, in a folder that is definitely there, behind the folder of somebody with a similar surname.

You find both, eventually. What you cannot do quickly is show when the right to work check was made, or that the manual handling refresher was completed before it lapsed rather than three weeks after.

The frustrating part is that you did all of it properly at the time. Somebody sat with that person and did the check. Somebody booked the refresher. None of it is in question. It just is not in a form you can put in front of somebody in under a minute.

That gap - between having done the thing and being able to evidence the thing - is what this page is about.

Staff files you can produce on demand

In HR Henry every person has one record, and the documents attach to that record rather than to a folder structure somebody invented in 2019.

Contracts, right to work copies, qualifications, certificates and medical information sit against the individual. Documents are typed, so a right to work copy is filed as a right to work copy and not as Scan_004.pdf. Where a document expires, it carries the expiry date, and the expiring records view lists what is lapsing before it lapses.

The point is not tidiness for its own sake. It is that a staff file has three different clocks running on it, set by three different rules, and none of them are intuitive.

Right to work copies must be kept for the whole of employment and for two years after the person leaves - so the file of somebody who left last year is not finished with. Payroll and PAYE records run for three years from the end of the tax year they relate to. Working time records run for two years from the date the record was made.

Those are three different retention periods on three different start dates, for one person. A filing cabinet cannot tell you which of them has run out. A record with dates on it can.

• Right to work copies: the whole of employment, plus two years after they leave, with the date of the check recorded.
• Payroll and PAYE records: three years from the end of the tax year they relate to.
• Working time records: two years from the date the record was made.
• Health and sickness information: special category data, held on a lawful basis and no longer than you need it.

Training currency, and the month it lapses

Care training is not a one-off. It is a rolling set of expiry dates across every member of staff, and the failure mode is never that somebody refused to do the training. It is that nobody noticed a refresher was due until after it was not.

HR Henry records training against the person, with completion dates and certificates, and where a course has a renewal period the record carries an expiry so it surfaces in the expiring records view rather than in a memory.

There is also a course catalogue built in. It currently holds 182 active courses, of which 24 sit in the Care and Social Work category - titles including The Care Certificate, Mental Capacity Act and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards, Introduction to the Safe Handling of Medicines, Safeguarding, Dementia Awareness, End of Life Care and Person-Centred Care. Most carry CPD accreditation. Alongside those are manual handling, fire safety, food safety and health and safety courses.

To be clear about what that is and is not: it is a catalogue of courses you can assign, complete and evidence. HR Henry does not certify that any of them satisfy your mandatory training requirements, or map to a particular framework. What your staff need is a judgement for you and your registered manager, informed by your regulator - not a claim we make on a web page.

Shift attendance, and the two-year rule

Care runs on shifts, and shifts run late, get covered at short notice and rarely match the rota exactly. That matters beyond payroll: the Working Time Regulations require records adequate to show you have complied with the weekly working time limit and the night work limits, kept for two years.

Sign-In Sally handles the attendance side. Staff tap to sign in on a tablet at the office or the home, with a photo and a timestamp. Domiciliary staff who never pass a fixed point clock in from their phone instead. Breaks are logged with one tap and deducted automatically, so recorded hours are worked hours rather than the span from arrival to departure.

Every clock-in feeds into HR Henry timesheets for approval. It also produces a fire register on any device, showing who is on site right now including visitors and contractors - which in a residential setting is not a nice-to-have.

Absence, and the conversation afterwards

Care has higher absence than most sectors, and the return to work conversation is where a good provider does its most useful work: checking somebody is genuinely fit to be back, and finding out whether anything about the job needs to change.

Two things make that conversation legally significant, and most guidance mentions neither.

The first is that the moment somebody tells you why they were off, you are processing special category health data. You are allowed to record sickness absence, because you have employment-law obligations that require it. You are not entitled to collect whatever you like about somebody's health because they were off with it. Record the fact of absence and its work implications, not a diagnosis, and keep it where health information belongs.

The second is that this conversation is frequently where an employer first learns something that switches on the duty to make reasonable adjustments. That is why what gets written down matters, and why a chat nobody recorded is not a record.

HR Henry logs sickness absences against the person, holds the return to work record, and flags repeat patterns. Our guide to what to ask, what to record and what not to goes through the conversation itself.

What this does, and does not do, for inspection

Plainly, because this matters more than anything else on the page.

HR Henry does not make you compliant. It does not satisfy CQC requirements, or those of the Care Inspectorate, CIW or RQIA. No software does, and any supplier telling you otherwise is selling you something that does not exist.

What it does is hold your records in a form you can produce: staff files with documents attached and dates on them, training with completion and expiry, attendance you can evidence, absence recorded properly. Whether your practice is good enough is a judgement about your service, made by your regulator, and it rests on what you actually do.

The honest version is narrow and useful: when somebody asks you to show them something, this is the difference between a minute and an afternoon.

Frequently asked questions

Does HR Henry make my service CQC compliant?

No. No software makes a provider compliant. HR Henry holds staff records, training, attendance and absence in a form you can produce and evidence. Whether your practice meets the standard is a judgement about your service, made by your regulator.

How long do I have to keep a care worker's right to work check?

For the whole of their employment and for two years after they leave. The copy must be one that cannot be changed, and you must record the date the check was made.

Does it work for domiciliary care as well as residential?

Yes. Staff who never pass a fixed point clock in from their phone rather than a tablet, and the records work the same way. The attendance side was built for both.

Do your training courses meet mandatory care training requirements?

That is a judgement for you and your registered manager, informed by your regulator. The catalogue holds 182 active courses including 24 in the Care and Social Work category, most CPD accredited, which you can assign, complete and evidence. We do not certify that they satisfy any particular framework.

How long do working time records have to be kept?

Two years from the date the record was made. The Working Time Regulations require records adequate to show compliance with the weekly working time limit and the night work limits.

Where do sickness records sit, given they are health data?

Against the individual employee record, with access controlled rather than in a shared folder or a spreadsheet that circulates. Health information is special category data under UK GDPR, so record the fact of absence and its work implications rather than a diagnosis.