What's new

What's new on Sessional

The tools we have shipped for UK locum healthcare professionals, newest first. Run your locum work like a business. Minus the accountant.

New to Sessional? See the full feature list, compare plans and pricing, or browse the help centre.

  1. Fixed

    PDFs are read again

    • From 16 August to 8 September, every PDF you gave Sessional came back "Could not read this PDF": receipts forwarded by email or uploaded, course certificates added as CPD evidence, and a CV uploaded for a summary draft. Photos, iPhone HEIC files and Word documents were unaffected. A change to how the app is packaged had left the PDF reader without a file it needs, and the fault hid behind that friendly message. It was found on 8 September with a real receipt and fixed the same night.
    • Nothing was lost. A receipt that could not be read is still on your review list with its file attached: fill the figures in and confirm, or throw it away and upload it again to have it read. A certificate you typed the details for is unchanged. A failed read is now recorded where we can see it, so the same fault cannot hide again.
  2. Improved

    Upload a receipt and let Sessional read it

    • Expenses now has an Add receipts button. Upload a PDF, a photo or an iPhone HEIC and Sessional reads it within the hour, proposes the vendor, date, amount and category, and waits for you to confirm. Forwarding by email still works and lives on the same page.
    • Receipts also has its own entry in the Finance menu. The Attach link on an expense is unchanged: it files a document against an expense you have already typed, without reading it.
    • Uploading a receipt no longer waits for your phone number and invoice address. Those are still needed to forward receipts by email, where the sender has to be identified.
  3. Improved

    The appraisal engine is free, for good

    • Everything you need for appraisal or revalidation is free on every plan, permanently: your professional record, reflections with Sandy and voice, your CPD evidence, learning needs, the appraisal pack and its export, your feedback reports with their PDF and verification code, and the NMC revalidation tracker and portfolio. The report PDF and the appraisal pack export were on Plus until today.
    • Plus is the business side: auto-chasers, expenses and mileage, tax planning, the compliance passport, booking confirmations, and collecting feedback. Pro is unchanged. Nothing you have already recorded moves behind a plan, and a lapsed plan never locks your evidence.
  4. Improved

    Feedback collection is now part of Plus

    • Starting a round, sending invitations and reminders, printing patient cards and drafting a covering note are on Plus from today. Everything you have already collected stays yours on any plan: your reports, their verification codes, the themes panel and your NMC log.
    • If your plan lapses while a round is open, nothing is withdrawn. Invitations already sent keep working and responses keep arriving; you can close the round at any time and send more once you are back on Plus.
  5. New

    Bill an expense to the organisation from your expense log

    • When you log an expense, say who pays. Mark it for the organisation and it is offered, already ticked, when you create the invoice for that session. Each one goes on the invoice as its own dated line. Mileage is billed at the rate per mile you set on the invoice.
    • Typing mileage on an invoice can now save the trip to Expenses in the same step, at the HMRC rate for the session date, so the deduction is not lost. Billing an expense never removes it from your costs: HMRC treats what the organisation pays as income and the cost stays allowable. The Expenses page shows what is marked to bill and what has been billed back.
    • An expense that is on an invoice keeps its amount, miles, date and category fixed until the invoice is voided, so the invoice and your records cannot disagree. The Pro API returns each expense's billing state.
    • A voided invoice now keeps its lines, so what was billed stays on record.
  6. Fixed

    Corrected figures, plainer wording about plans, and the legal pages rewritten

    • Several numbers were wrong and are now right. The NHS pension employer contribution is the 14.38% the form asks you to write in box 3 and box h; the dashboard used to preview 23.7% while the downloaded PDF printed 14.38%, which is the same month filed two different ways. The 10-week rule now runs from the end of the period of work rather than the end of the month, so a session on the 2nd no longer shows a deadline up to 29 days later than the real one, and the contributions due on the 7th of the following month are shown as the separate deadline they are. Scotland now uses SPPA's own 2025/26 tiers instead of a table that was not theirs. Private pension contributions in the tax planner and the tax calculator are modelled as relief at source, which is how a personal pension actually works: they extend your basic-rate band rather than reducing your trading profit, and they do not reduce Class 4 National Insurance.
    • The wording about plans and the trial says what happens. Basic is free, it stays free, and it needs no card. Plus and Pro start with a 14-day free trial the first time you subscribe: a card is taken at the start, nothing is charged until the trial ends, and you can cancel before then from your billing page. NMC revalidation, the professional record, reflections, CPD evidence and your cancellation terms are on Basic, and several pages had been selling them as part of Plus. CSV exports are on every plan. The email that goes out before a trial ends now says the right thing to someone whose trial came from a code, whose account moves to Basic and is never charged.
    • The privacy notice, terms and cookie policy have been rewritten and dated, and there is a new accessibility statement. They now say where your data actually is: the United Kingdom, with emails delivered by Postmark in the United States and the automated check for names in feedback comments running on a model hosted in France. Feedback rounds were tightened at the same time. A question answered by fewer than three people is now withheld from the report rather than shown, nothing in the database joins an answer to the person who was asked, and a decline is never reported back to you as a name or a number.
  7. Fixed

    Nine emails now carry their proper subject line

    • Nine of the emails we send arrived with an internal code in the subject line, such as "trial_ended", rather than a sentence. They included the note that a Plus trial has ended, an invitation to join Sessional, the warning that someone tried to sign up with your email address, the confirmation of an address you forward receipts from, the reminder before complimentary access runs out, the week-one welcome note, and the confirmations for a call booked or cancelled. The proper wording had been written for every one of them and was simply never used when the email was sent. It is now. Nothing inside those emails has changed, and there is nothing to do at your end.
  8. Fixed

    Replying to an email from us reaches us

    • When our founder writes to you himself and signs his own name, the email now comes from [email protected], and a reply to it arrives back inside Sessional where the rest of your conversation with us already lives. It used to invite replies to a personal mailbox that sits outside the product, so an answer could sit unseen. Anything from Sessional Support or Sessional Billing is unchanged and still comes from the usual address. Nothing to do at your end, and the reply button works the way it always did.
  9. Improved

    Patient feedback in the GMC’s own words, and a clearer invitation

    • The patient questionnaire is no longer our wording. Sections 1 to 3 of the GMC Patient Questionnaire are now reproduced exactly as the GMC prints them: the questions about your visit, the seven lines about how good the doctor was at being polite, listening, assessing, explaining, involving you and arranging treatment, the two about confidentiality and honesty, the three yes or no questions and the comment box, on the GMC's own scales including "Doesn't apply". Section 4, the demographic questions about sex, age and ethnic group, is not asked: ethnicity is special category data, a demographic breakdown of a round that can be as small as five people is a way of working out who answered, and we never split results by any of it. Every page that names the questionnaire says so in the same words. Rounds you already started keep the wording their respondents actually read.
    • Your report says more about who you asked, and why. The GMC asks that colleague feedback come from a range of different roles, so the report, the PDF and the appraisal pack now print how many invitations went to colleagues, managers, administrators and others, and the page where you tick names nudges you if everyone on your list is down as the same role. That line counts invitations, never responses: who answered, by role, would identify the one manager the moment they replied. Beside it there is a box for why you chose those people, which is printed for your appraiser and never shown to anyone you invite. The report also states whose number is whose: around fifteen colleague responses and around thirty-four patient responses are the GMC's own figures, while five is our rule about anonymity and no regulator set it.
    • Invitations now come from Sessional Feedback, [email protected], rather than from a general Sessional address, so a colleague or patient can see what the message is before they open it. A reply goes to the Sessional support desk and never to you, because a reply in your inbox would tell you who had answered. The invitation itself no longer offers any account link: the person reading it has no Sessional account, so the way out is the decline link, which is permanent and covers every professional on Sessional.
  10. New

    Colleague and patient feedback, from the people you actually worked with

    • Start a feedback round and Sessional lists every organisation in your cycle from your own session log, with the contact it already holds at each one. Tick the people to ask, add anyone else by name, and send. Doctors get questionnaires based on the GMC colleague and patient ones; everyone else gets a short six-question organisation form, which nurses and midwives can log into their NMC practice-related feedback in one press. Patients answer from an A5 card with a QR code. Reading your reports is free on every plan; collecting moved to Plus on 8 September 2026.
    • Sessional collates the answers, so you never see one of them, and you are never shown which of the people you invited replied, declined or did nothing. Below five responses a round says only that fewer than five have arrived, because an exact figure that moved by one after you emailed one person would tell you what that person did. At five and above you get the totals and the spread for each question, with the comments undated and in an order unrelated to when they arrived, once at least three of them have been checked. Every comment is checked twice before anyone sees it, once by a rules-based check and once by a language model in France, and comments appear the morning after they are checked. Counts update each morning rather than as answers land, and one press reminds everyone outstanding without telling you who they were or how many there were. Every report says it is collated, not benchmarked, because there is no cohort to compare you with and we will not pretend otherwise.
    • Nothing can be deleted or cherry-picked: there is no route that removes a response or a round, and a revoked round still appears in your appraisal pack with its counts. A questionnaire filled in while you are signed in to your own account is set aside and counted where an appraiser can see it, while answers from a network or device you have also used are kept and simply counted, because an organisation shares one network and nobody should lose a colleague's honest answer to that. Invitations are marked as coming from your booking ledger or typed in by hand with the proportion stated. Exporting the report or closing the round records an unchangeable version of the figures with its own code, printed on the document beside its version number, and an appraiser can open sessional.co.uk/verify/feedback/ followed by that code to see exactly what Sessional recorded for that version and compare it with the paper in front of them. Our own support staff cannot read responses, including in an assisted-support session. Respondent pages set no cookies and load nothing from anyone else, contact details are encrypted, deleted 90 days after the round closes and never used for marketing. Answers are held in the United Kingdom; the only work done outside it is the automated check for names, which runs on a model hosted in France.
  11. Fixed

    Booking messaging is on every plan

    • Messaging an organisation about a booking has always worked on every plan, including free Basic. Three places on the site said it was part of Plus. That was never true of the product, so the copy has been corrected to match the app rather than the other way round. Nothing to switch on, and nothing has changed in what you can do.
    • The one limit on Basic is how many bookings you can hold in a month, five, and messaging simply follows the bookings you already have.
    • The written booking confirmation is a different feature and stays on Plus.
  12. Fixed

    Signing out on one tab no longer breaks another

    • Sign out in one tab, or have a session ended for you, and any other tab still open now takes you to the sign in page. It used to show an error instead. The page was right to stop you, it just said so badly.
  13. New

    Learning needs, the appraisal pack, and certificates by email

    • Ask for up to five suggested learning needs for your PDP. They come from your own record, the organisations and settings in your session log and the last ten reflections you saved, and each one says which of those it came from. Nothing is stored: copy the ones you want, and the plan stays yours to write. Ten a day on every plan.
    • GMC-registered professionals get an appraisal pack: one PDF holding your scope of work, your reflections grouped by Good Medical Practice domain, your CPD with the certificates behind it, the gaps you have explained, and a coverage index counting what sits in each domain. It was part of Plus when it shipped and has been free on every plan since 8 September 2026.
    • A certificate forwarded from your verified address lands in CPD evidence rather than your expenses, with a one-press move in either direction for when that judgement goes wrong. Forwarding comes through the same door as receipts, so it is part of Plus, while uploading a certificate on the page stays free on every plan. The whole store downloads as one ZIP with an index, which was on Plus when it shipped and has been free on every plan since 8 September 2026. And where your regulator publishes a target, a monthly email as your cycle nears its end says what you have recorded and what is still short. Switch it off under notification preferences.
  14. New

    Write a reflection with Sandy, or by voice

    • Sandy is the first thing on the page now, at every screen size, as three tabs: Rough notes, Talk it through, and Write it myself for when you would rather not use it at all. Jot down rough notes, or answer up to eight questions one at a time, and Sandy composes the reflection from what you gave it, arriving line by line as it writes rather than after a wait. It writes only from your notes or your answers, never from nothing, and you read every line and confirm it is your own account before it saves.
    • Record an answer instead of typing it. Voice notes are transcribed in the EU, the audio is never stored, and the transcript is yours to check first. Three reflections and five voice notes a day on Basic, 30 and 60 on Plus.
    • Course certificates have their own free store. Upload one and the provider, title, date and hours are read off it for you to confirm, then attach it to any record. 50 certificates on Basic, unlimited on Plus.
  15. New

    Your professional record, from sessions you have already logged

    • A Professional record page that turns your session log into the work history your regulator asks for: where you worked, in what setting, how often, and any gap worth explaining. Nothing to type twice.
    • Reflections in the words your own regulator uses, with its record types, its standards and its cycle. Before anything saves, a check looks for NHS numbers, dates of birth and named people so a record never carries one.
    • Nurses and midwives keep the NMC Revalidation page they already use, and Sandy is on it too: the CPD entry and the reflective account open with the same three tabs. The export, ready to paste into your appraisal or revalidation tool, was part of Plus when this shipped and has been free on every plan since 8 September 2026.
  16. New

    Send receipts by email

    • Forward a receipt to [email protected] from the address on your account and it arrives as a draft expense, with the amount, date and vendor already read.
    • PDFs, photos and iPhone HEIC files all work, including the automatic receipts that parking apps and taxis send.
    • Nothing is added to your expenses until you have checked the figures and confirmed. A misread amount would be a wrong figure on your tax return, so you always get the last word.
  17. Improved

    Invoice conversations, the Money page, and bulk invoice import

    • When an organisation replies to one of your invoices, the reply now lands on that invoice as a conversation instead of in your personal inbox, so the query and the bill stay together.
    • New guides for the Money page, invoice conversations and importing invoices from a spreadsheet.
    • Corrected the plan details shown across the site: some features were listed on the wrong plan in both directions.
  18. Improved

    A calmer, clearer dashboard

    • A refreshed dashboard and navigation, easier to scan on a phone between shifts.
    • A new help centre with step by step guides for every part of the app.
    • An optional dark theme for late finishes.
  19. New

    Edit sessions after the fact, and log past work

    • Change or remove a session after you have logged it, right up until it is on an invoice.
    • Record work you did in the past in one step, already marked as delivered.
    • GPs can now set an hourly rate as well as a session rate, with a separate band for each.
  20. New

    Sharper profile summaries from your CV

    • Upload a PDF or Word CV and get a clean, ready to edit summary for your public booking profile.
    • Your uploaded CV is saved to your own document vault, and you can delete it any time.
  21. New

    A compliance passport you control

    • Bundle the documents you choose into one secure link to share with an organisation, no account needed on their side.
    • Revoke the link whenever you want. Sessional never verifies documents on your behalf, you stay in control of what you share.
  22. New

    An assistant, and a look at the year ahead

    • A Plus assistant that answers questions about your own data, your sessions, invoices and earnings.
    • An earnings forecast so you can see where the year is heading.
  23. New

    Message organisations about a booking

    • Reply to a booking request and keep the whole conversation in one place, inside the app.
  24. New

    Invoices that chase themselves

    • Overdue invoices are followed up automatically at 14, 21 and 28 days past due, with the original PDF attached.
    • Every invoice email carries a secure link so an organisation can mark it paid or raise a query without an account.
    • Each overdue invoice is chased on its own, quoting its own number, because that is how an accounts payable team processes one.
  25. New

    Check your pay across every employer

    • Mark each delivered shift as paid correctly, paid short, or not paid yet, and record what actually landed.
    • See open pay issues across all of your employers in one place, something no single payslip portal shows.
  26. New

    Revalidation, tracked as you work

    • Nurses and midwives get an NMC revalidation tracker: practice hours counted from your logged shifts, plus CPD, reflection, feedback and confirmation.
    • Midwives get a dedicated competency log that rolls into the portfolio export.
    • Export your whole portfolio as a single PDF.
  27. New

    NHS pension paperwork for GPs

    • Generate the pension forms GPs need from the sessions you have already logged.
  28. New

    Tax planning that knows the UK rules

    • Multi year tax profiles with the correct HMRC bands, so you can plan the current year and audit previous ones.
    • Mileage and expenses at the current HMRC rates, ready for your return.
  29. New

    Xero sync for Pro

    • Connect Xero and push invoices and expenses across, with your own account code mapping.
  30. New

    Free tools, no account needed

    • An invoice template builder, a mileage calculator, and an NHS enhancement calculator that shows what the payslip should say.
  31. New

    Built for 17 professions across 6 regulators

    • GMC, GPhC, HCPC, NMC, GDC and GOC professionals all get the right registration fields, session labels, rates and document categories.

Want something we have not built yet? Tell us on the contact page. Ready to start? See the plans, Basic is free, and it stays free.