For rail

Plan PTS medicals and D&A renewals before Sentinel blocks them

Sentinel decides at the swipe-in. It doesn't plan for you. Certly is the layer next to it, for rail labour suppliers and sponsors: every medical, screening and competence date in your own overview, with reminders months ahead — so the renewal is booked long before the card would ever block.

The dates behind a Sentinel card

• PTS medicals — Validity depends on age: broadly 10 years under 40, 6 years under 50, 5 years under 60 and 1–2 years beyond that. A crew of mixed ages means medicals expiring on completely different rhythms.
• Drugs & alcohol status — A negative screen no older than three months is required before initial PTS training, and random testing continues throughout. A positive result cancels the Sentinel card and bars the individual from Network Rail infrastructure for five years — there is no fixing that one afterwards.
• Competences on the card — PTS itself and every additional competence carries its own recertification date in Sentinel. The card swipes green until the day one of them lapses.
• Everything Sentinel doesn't hold — The rest of the wallet still exists: first aid, plant tickets like forklift or IPAF for depot work, driving licences, and your own company paperwork for RISQS audits.

Where it goes wrong in practice

Sentinel tells you at the gate, not in advance. The system of record is exactly that — a record. It answers "is this person compliant right now?" flawlessly, at the moment they swipe in for a night shift. By then your options are zero: the shift is short-handed and the client knows it before you do.

Age bands make medicals unpredictable. One operative renews his PTS medical every ten years, his older colleague every two. No single rhythm to remember means no rhythm at all — each date has to be tracked individually.

The sponsor duty is yours, not Sentinel's. The Sentinel Scheme Rules expect sponsors to run a competence management system that flags requirements in advance of expiry. A spreadsheet that someone checks when it's quiet doesn't meet the spirit of that — and it shows exactly when it matters, at an audit or after an incident.

The rest of the wallet lives nowhere. Sentinel holds the rail competences. The first aid certificate, the depot forklift ticket and the driving licence live in a drawer — until a client asks for the full matrix at pre-qualification.

How it works with Certly

• Reminders at 90, 60 and 30 days before every medical, screening and competence date — with escalation at 14 and 7 days if nothing has been booked.
• Working back from the date — 90 days is enough to book the medical provider, release the operative for a day and get the result uploaded to Sentinel with room to spare.
• The operative gets their own email, with a link to confirm the new date from their phone — no login. If it sits, it escalates to you.
• One matrix for everything — rail dates next to first aid, IPAF and forklift tickets for depot work, plus vehicles and plant.
• Evidence on one button — a status overview with underlying documents as a PDF, or a live share link, for the RISQS audit or the client's pre-qualification.
• Requirements per client (Pro) — record what each principal contractor demands and see green, amber or red per operative, tested through the job's end date, before you confirm the shift.

Start without retyping anything

Most suppliers already have the dates in a spreadsheet — it goes into Certly in one upload. Starting from scratch? The free training matrix template gives you the structure, and you can import that same file later.

Frequently asked questions