Creating a better work-life balance; implementing annualised self-preferencing/self-rostering rotas

Summary

Rob Galloway, Emergency Medicine Consultant at University Hospitals Sussex, shares how he implemented self-preferencing/self-rostering rotas into his Trust.  

Content

13 years ago, I came up with a formula. This formula works out how many clinical hours people needed to do when working annualised self-preferencing/self-rostering rotas, and it has become a passion of mine.

Last week I stood back from being involved in medical workforce issues at my Trust. Having spent these years helping colleagues to not burnout and get a better work-life balance, I am now trying to do the same for myself while allowing time to concentrate on my passion. Crucially though, because of the systems created, I am no longer needed to ensure what we have set up continues at my trust.

My last job in this role was inducting all the medical and A&E junior doctors into how their rotas would work.

To provide care today, we need the doctors working where the service needs it. To provide care next year, we need to provide jobs that are sustainable and don’t lead to burnout. To provide care in 2 years’ time, we need to do it in a way that is financially viable.

Working with the company HealthRota, we have managed to do all three and transform the management of the medical workforce at University Hospitals Sussex NHS Trust.

We now we have rotas where the doctors have a much better work-life balance as they choose when they are off and its much easier to work part time.

We have improved training for the doctors, for example, by guaranteed clinic weeks.

We have better continuity of care, even staffing during the week and 7 days a week ward-based care on medical wards, identical staffing 7 days a week in A&E, while guaranteeing the doctors get all their study leave, self-development time, bank holidays and annual leave they are entitled to without endless fights as is sadly so often the case.

We are locum free except for last minute sickness, had 100% fill rates in our jobs and at two of our hospitals have 70 FTE fellows doing 25% non-clinical time in research or education.

These ideas are simple. Work out how many hours you need to do after all the leave and non-clinical time is taken off and make rotas that work for the individual and the service using those hours to do so. This is what annualised self-preferencing/self-rostering rotas are. Simple ideas but ones initially not part of NHS policies and one impossible to implement with what was the dominant NHS rota technology.

I hope what we have developed gets spread out further across the NHS and not just with doctors. Please email me for further information [email protected]

*This blog is adapted with permission from Rob's LinkedIn post.  

Related reading on the hub:

• Case study: Using e-rostering to improve staff wellbeing and retention
• Patient Safety Spotlight interview with Rob Galloway, Emergency Medicine Consultant at University Hospitals Sussex