Cancellation clauses that are fair in both directions

Cancellation terms are where staffing contracts show their character. Some punish a home for a death overnight. Others let a client cancel an hour before the shift and leave the worker, who turned down other work and arranged childcare, holding the cost. Neither is fair, and unfair terms have a way of ending up in disputes.

The position we settled on

Cancel with more than 24 hours' notice and there is no charge at all. Twenty-four hours is enough to cover almost every genuine operational change: a hospital admission in the morning, a unit closed to admissions, a rota corrected the day before.

Inside 24 hours the full shift may be charged, and the word may is doing careful work. It is a discretion, not a penalty. A home that cancels because a resident died overnight should not be invoiced, and is not. A client that cancels late every Friday is a different conversation. Drafted as an automatic penalty, such clauses risk being unenforceable. Drafted as a priced permission, they hold.

And in exchange: if a worker we send is not right, the client can say so within four hours of the start and pay nothing for that shift. Fairness that only flows one way is not fairness, it is leverage.

The part most contracts have not caught up with

Employment law is moving toward guaranteed payments for workers whose shifts are cancelled at short notice, with the cost falling on the agency. Contracts written today should already say who carries that cost and how it is recovered, once, not twice. If your current terms are silent on it, they are already out of date.

This article is general commentary from our own experience running a healthcare staffing agency. It is not legal advice. Take specific questions to ACAS or an employment law adviser.