How to See Your Payslip on ESR (and When ESR Is Down)

This page is for NHS staff in England and Wales who want to find or open a payslip in ESR. It sticks to what the NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) publishes about payslips, because ESR screens differ between employers and change over time. For how to interpret the numbers once you have the payslip open, use our guide to reading your NHS payslip. FrontlinePay is independent and not affiliated with NHSBSA or any employer.

Where your payslip is

NHSBSA's Employee Self Service guide describes the ESR home page as a dashboard of portlets, which are small boxes that give quick access to your information. One of the nationally available portlets is Payslips/P60s, which lets an employee view their payslips and P60s. Others include Total Rewards (your Total Reward Statement, with pension information), My Personal Information, My Annual Leave and My Compliance. Your organisation's administrators choose which portlets appear and may add local ones, so yours may not match the national list.

What is on it

NHSBSA's "Understanding your payslip" guide breaks the payslip into labelled areas. In its own wording of the headings:

• ✓ Employee and PAYE information: assignment number, pay scale description, standard hours, the salary shown (reduced if part time), tax office details, tax code and National Insurance number.
• ✓ Pay and allowances: each payment in the period, with hours worked, hours paid, the rate used and the amount.
• ✓ Deductions: statutory and voluntary deductions taken from your pay.
• ✓ Year to date balances: the totals received and deducted so far in the tax year, which feed into your P60 at year end.
• ✓ This period summary: the totals for the period, the date you will be paid, how you will be paid (for example BACS) and your net pay.

The guide also lists common abbreviations, including ARRS (arrears payment), EN (enhancement such as unsocial hours), OT (overtime), NNI (payment not subject to NI), NP (non-pensionable), OSP (occupational sick pay), OMP (occupational maternity pay), SMP (statutory maternity pay), SSP (statutory sick pay) and R (refund). Our payslip codes decoder goes further, and the NHS payslip checker helps you test whether the figures look right.

More than one job

NHSBSA's guide says the assignment number, which you should quote in all correspondence, is suffixed -2, -3 and so on if you have more than one post. That is also how payroll tells your jobs apart: a substantive post and a bank post are separate assignments with separate payslips. If a payslip you expect is missing, check you are looking at the right assignment before assuming it has not been issued.

Getting your latest payslip when ESR is offline

NHSBSA says it sometimes takes ESR offline to apply essential changes such as pay awards, pension changes and security updates. During those periods nobody can sign in to ESR itself. In some of them the ESR Hub stays available, and NHSBSA's guide "Accessing your latest payslip during reduced ESR service" describes this route:

• • Go to the ESR Hub and try to log in to the ESR portal. A holding page explains ESR is unavailable.
• • On that page, choose the button labelled Continue to Payslip Download. It opens a View My Payslip page in a new browser window.
• • Sign in with your usual ESR username and password for internet access, then choose Download My Payslip. You get the latest payslip for your primary assignment.
• • For another assignment, use Advanced Options and type in the assignment number. It is not a drop-down list, so you need to know it.
• • Only the latest available payslip and one previous period are offered.

When we checked the Hub on 19 October 2026 it showed planned unavailability from 6pm on Friday 30 October to 11.59pm on Sunday 1 November. Check the Hub for current notices.

If you cannot see a payslip at all

• • No login: ask your ESR team or HR for access. The ESR Hub says employees without internet access to ESR can request it from their employer.
• • Login works, no payslip box: your administrators may not have added the portlet or your access level may be limited. Ask your ESR team.
• • Payday has passed and nothing has arrived: Acas says payslips are given on or before payday. Raise it with your manager or payroll team straight away.
• • Your employer does not use ESR: NHSBSA describes ESR as the system for the NHS in England and Wales, so staff elsewhere should check their own employer's arrangements.

If you have left

NHSBSA's Leavers Dashboard lets former employees download their last four payslips, plus their P45 and P60 where applicable, for a limited period after leaving (up to 90 days by default). Use our P60 and P45 guide for the details and the awkward cases, such as moving to bank work.

If the payslip looks wrong

Start with the payroll team at your employer, with the pay period, the line and what you expected. Our page on who to contact about wrong pay sets out the route, and if you have been overpaid, see your rights on overpayments.

Sources and date checked

Checked 19 October 2026. ESR documents are linked from the ESR Hub.

• NHSBSA, "Understanding your payslip" (PDF on the ESR Hub Looking for help page)
• NHSBSA, "Accessing your latest payslip during reduced ESR service" (PDF linked from the ESR Hub home page)
• NHSBSA, ESR Employee Self Service functional guide (PDF on the Implementing Employee Self Service page)
• NHSBSA, ESR Leavers Dashboard FAQ (PDF on the Implementing Leavers Dashboard page)
• Acas: Payslips

Related guides

This guide is general information based on NHS Business Services Authority and Acas material at the date shown. It is not affiliated with NHSBSA, ESR or any NHS employer, and is not financial or legal advice.