Compliance Help Centre 👋

This is a set of resources written to support you to get compliant quickly and easily, so you can start your next locum fast. Please take a look around! The Messly Team 🙏

Common Questions

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What is compliance? When you’re working as a locum in any healthcare setting, whether with the hospital bank or through a locum agency, there are checks in place to ensure you’re eligible and safe to work. If you’re working with an agency, they are responsible for certifying that those checks have been done. The checks include: 👉 Your right to work (passport and visa) 👉 Your identity (ID, proof of address) 👉 Your criminal record (DBS check) 👉 Your work history (CV, references) 👉 Your professional registrations (GMC status and other certificates) 👉 Your occupational health status (vaccinations and blood tests)
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Can I wait until I have secured a job? Hospitals won’t review your application for a locum position until they know that you’ve passed compliance. The agency can sometimes submit your CV and references with the remainder to follow, but you’ll have to start the compliance process first before you have certainty about the job you’ll be working.
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Do I arrange my compliance with Messly? You have to arrange the compliance directly with the locum agency or agencies you want to work with. Messly's role is to support you in the background and to answer any questions you might have.
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Can I just do it once for all agencies? Good question! Each agency is individually responsible for compliance of doctors they work with, and there’s unfortunately no system for sharing that information between agencies (or between hospitals and agencies). However, we’ve found that once you’ve done it once it becomes much easier thereafter. Around 90% of the requirements are the same, and if you have your documents saved in one place you can share that folder with subsequent agencies, which will save you a lot of time.
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My locum agency is making things hard... shall I switch to a different one? Generally, no. All locum agencies are required to do these checks by NHS regulations, which they all adhere to, so you'll hear the same things if you go elsewhere. However, some agencies have better processes and more helpful team members than others. Some are very pedantic whilst others can take a common sense approach. If you're unsure, ask the Messly team and we will give you some pointers.

The Process

These are the steps to getting compliant and starting work with the locum agency.

1️⃣ Agree to start compliance

  • When you speak to the recruiter from the locum agency, they will ask you if you'd like to register with the agency and start a compliance process.
  • If you say yes, they will send over a list of forms and requirements, and introduce a colleague from the agency's compliance team who will be your point of contact. You're up and running!

2️⃣ Collect & send what you have

  • Review the information below, and the list of requirements the agency have sent over to you.
  • Gather up what you have and send this over to your compliance contact at the locum agency. Dumping it all into an email is fine. The sooner you can get the first few bits over to them the better.

3️⃣ Fill in the gaps

  • Depending on what you already had to hand, you will either have a few bits to gather up or quite a bit of work to do...
  • Work with the locum agency to work through what's needed, using the Compliance Toolkit below to help you through the trickier ones.
  • Some parts may take a while to sort out. Keep in touch with your recruiter to let them know where you're up to. If you're unlikely to have time to sort things for a while, let them know that too.

4️⃣ Have interview and start working 🎉

  • Once you've got everything together, the final step is to have a face-to-face interview with the agency to check your documents in person. Note these have been virtual due to COVID but are expected to return to face-to-face imminently.
  • You're then ready to get to work! Save the documents and files somewhere safe so you can easily pick them up should you need to go through this process again.

Our Top Tips

🧭 Get Started Early

The sooner it's out of the way, the earlier you can start earning money as a locum. Even if you're partially complete, the agency may be able to start putting you forward for work.

📞 Work with your Agency

Keep in touch with your recruiter to let them know where you're up to. If you're unlikely to have time to sort things for a while, let them know that too.

🆘 Ask For Help

If something doesn't make sense, reach out to your locum agency or to the Messly team for help. They are experts in helping you get compliant, and the Messly team can also help you jump over any hurdles you're facing.

📅 Pick a Day

It's often best to try to crack through most of it on a day when you're not working rather than trying to do little bits every evening after work.

💻 Save Documents

You'll need to refer to these documents again, so store the scans in a Dropbox folder or on your desktop, and the physical documents somewhere easy to access.

📷 Scan Carefully

Scans will get rejected if they're not clear and show all four corners of the document. Use a scanning app such as Adobe Scan or Genius Scan.

Compliance Toolkit

In this section, we'll dive into the specifics of what you’ll be asked to do, and give your top tips for getting each done quickly.

Personal Checks

Professional Documents

Other

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Index

Got a Question?

You can reach out to the Messly team for help, and we will try to help you jump over any hurdles you're facing.

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