Getting organised as a hospital locum doctor

Hospital locum work often means moving between trusts, departments, and agencies — each with its own booking system, its own way of confirming hours, and its own payment timeline. A bit of structure early on saves a lot of chasing later.

Know your booking route

Most hospital locum work comes through one of two routes: a trust’s own staff bank, or a locum agency. Each has its own portal, its own confirmation process, and its own quirks about how quickly (or slowly) shifts get logged and paid. If you’re working across more than one trust or more than one agency — common for locums covering gaps flexibly — it’s easy to lose track of which system you used for which shift.

Records worth keeping, shift by shift

Whatever the payment arrangement, keeping your own note of each shift protects you:

• Trust or hospital, department, and site (useful if a trust has multiple sites)
• Date, shift pattern, and hours actually worked versus hours booked
• Who booked you — bank coordinator, agency contact — so you know who to chase
• Any agreed uplift for unsociable hours or short-notice bookings

Payslip and timesheet discrepancies are common enough in bank and agency work that having your own record to check against is worth the two minutes it takes per shift.

Mileage between sites

If you’re claiming mileage, whether a particular site counts as a “temporary” workplace for tax purposes depends on your pattern — a scattering of short placements across different trusts looks different to months spent consistently at the same hospital. This is genuinely worth checking properly rather than guessing, since getting it wrong either under-claims what you’re entitled to or claims something you’re not.

Revalidation, appraisal, and indemnity

A few costs worth tracking as they come up:

• Appraisal and revalidation-related costs, if not covered by wherever you’re primarily based
• Indemnity cover — confirm what’s included through each trust or agency, and whether anything extra is needed for locum work specifically
• GMC retention fee and any royal college subscriptions relevant to your specialty

Payment timing across multiple sources

Different trusts and agencies pay on different cycles, and when you’re juggling several at once, “has this actually been paid, or is it just running on its normal slow schedule?” becomes a real question. Knowing what’s outstanding, and for how long, is the difference between chasing a genuine problem early and not noticing until it’s been months.

How LocumBook helps with this specifically

This is exactly the situation LocumBook is built around: log each shift once — trust, department, hours, who booked it — the same day it happens, so nothing depends on memory a month later. Every shift moves through invoiced → awaiting payment → paid, so you can see at a glance what’s actually outstanding across every trust and agency you work with, instead of checking multiple portals. Mileage attaches directly to each shift, with distance worked out automatically from a saved home address. And if any part of your income is self-employed, the app’s export tools pull your logged sessions and mileage together for self-assessment, so you’re reviewing a year’s data rather than reconstructing it.

Not sure whether your bank or agency work is PAYE or self-employed? See Self-employed or agency PAYE?. For day-to-day logging in the app, start with Getting started.