Biometric system for care homes

By Anthony Hildebrand

Helen McArdle Care has become the first care home group in the UK to specify a biometric time and attendance system to monitor staffing across a multi-site operation, according to manufacturer UKB International.

Helen McArdle Care operates five residential care homes for the elderly and a further five homes are scheduled to open in 2009.

It provides twenty-four hour, year round care. The company needed to monitor staff attendance at all five care homes from head office to assure themselves that staff listed to work had actually turned up and that the correct mix of skills was in place. Staff are on different pay scales Throughout the organisation, from managers to cleaners.

Senior management required a simple to operate time and attendance system which would allow them to see at a glance who had worked at which care home, where and for exactly how long.

UKB International recommended the FP3000 system, networked to a dedicated PC located at each care home administration office. The FP3000 is a scanner suitable for high volume applications. The scanner does not store actual fingerprints – it recognises minutiae points on the finger and converts these into data which is encrypted and then stored for future comparison.

Register at work
Staff register their finger once at their place of work, then simply place their finger on the scanner located by the door when arriving at or leaving work.

The networked PC provides up-to-the-minute reports of staff clocking on and off, with irrefutable evidence of attendance which eliminates potential disputes. These reports provide the basis for payroll calculations. Pay-per-minute payroll calculations provide an incentive for good timekeeping and prevent over payment for time not worked.

Helen McArdle Care finance director Nigel Dawson said: “The system is simple for our staff to use since they do not need to write working times in a record book or to remember swipe cards, PINs or fobs. With many managers and staff at five locations it is essential we can manage time and attendance both to ensure we provide a high level of suitably qualified care, and to ensure accuracy of the payroll.

Drill down
“The management reports generated by the FP3000 provide snapshot data with the ability to quickly drill down for detail. In the residential care home business an awareness of staffing levels at all our locations is vital and the UKB International solution has provided us with this capability.”

UKB international sales director Steve Barnard said: “We are delighted to have helped pioneer the use of biometrics in the care home sector with Helen McArdle Care. Biometric technology is the ideal choice when management need pinpoint accuracy in terms of staffing data.”