IMPORTANT UPDATE on NEW Smartcard Software – CareID Services (CIS)
Changes will take effect at the end of November 2014
Dear Registration Authority Agent, Sponsors and Practice Managers,
From our previous communication on the 15 of September 2014 we have been informed by HSCIC that the
replacement RA administration software called CareID Services (CIS) will begin transfer from the 28 of
November 2014 and will become live from 2 December 2014.
How does this affect you?
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Thursday 27 November 2014 will be the last day to submit any Smartcard requests.
Any RA Smartcard requests received between Friday 28 November to Monday 1st December will not
be actioned as all Smartcard management systems will be de-activated.
In addition, no RA Agent, Sponsor or Unlocker will be able to reset any Smartcard Passcodes or renew
certificates. If any staffs receive expiry messages in during the 30 day notification these will need to be
actioned immediately.
HSCIC’s reason for the 4 day outage of all smartcard systems is that it will take time to migrate all Smartcard
profiles to CareID.
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The CareID Services software will become live on Tuesday 2 December 2014.
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All Smartcards will continue to work as normal during the migration. Users will be able to authenticate
access throughout the weekend apart from one small outage where they will be required to reauthenticate.
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We encourage you to use CareID Services software from Tuesday 2 December 2014 for all your RA
requests. Further details of accessing the eLearning for CareID training is provided below.
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RA forms will continue to be accepted following go-live for a limited time period but all RA Agent,
Sponsors and Unlockers are encouraged to use CareID.
Contingency plans:
During the downtime period from Friday 28 of November to Monday 1 of December 2014 no amendments to
smartcard access, production of new or replacement Smartcards or unlocking of Smartcards will be available.
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We advise that staff is aware of local organisational procedure during this time in case a staff member forgets
their passcode or a Smartcard fails to authenticate. The first recommendation is the use of a username and
password to access the clinical systems.
However, do not create a manual password for a user even as a precaution on this weekend (28 November to
1 December 2014). The reason for this is that if the user accesses another organisation’s clinical system, they
will be locked out even if the Smartcard is fully operational. For example, SystmOne disables logon at any site
if a manual username and password is used. The clinical system’s password administrator can create a
password for the user but only if the person has previously accessed your clinical system with their Smartcard.
Other users you need to consider for contingency are new users who do not have a Smartcard or users who
are due to begin work on these days and require access. The second recommendation we advise is that a
request in advance is made and access is added early.
What you need to do next:
eLearning Training:
eLearning for CareID has been developed by HSCIC and Premier IT and will help familiarise you with the
policies and workflows of the CareID system.
eLearning consists of National RA Policy and Workflow modules on how to use CareID.
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Please register and log into eLearning to complete the CareID training package by clicking on the
following link: https://hscic.premierittask.com.
Select the appropriate RA role you have in your organisation i.e. RA Agent, Sponsor, RA ID Checker and
LSA/Unlocker
Staff identified as Sponsors, RA Agent ID Checkers or Local System Administrators/Unlockers will also
need to complete the eLearning training.
If you have any technical issues accessing the eLearning website please email
accesscontrol@hscic.gov.uk in the first instance.
If you have any further queries please contact us by email at wsybcsu.careidproject@nhs.net
Kind regards,
John Caleniuc
Senior Project Manager
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