Stop letting down resident doctors, NHSE tells trusts

Trusts are to have new responsibilities for improving resident doctors’ working lives under a plan unveiled by NHS England today.

They will have to appoint a senior leader responsible for “resident doctor issues”, reporting to their board, within six weeks. They should also, with immediate effect, make sure doctors get detailed rotas six weeks before rotations start.

In a letter to provider leaders today, NHSE indicated it would be monitoring their delivery of these tasks. It will also be asking for updates on whether they have taken a range of steps to improve resident doctors’ wellbeing, such as designated on-call parking spaces, and access to 24/7 hot meals, rest areas and lockers.

New data on these and other indicators will be published “from the autumn”, NHSE said, and become part of the NHS Oversight Framework, which NHSE uses to judge organisational performance.

The letter, from NHSE CEO Sir Jim Mackey and national medical director Professor Meghana Pandit, says: “Despite previous commitments to act on the concerns [doctors] have repeatedly raised about how they are treated as a rotating part of the workforce, many of these problems – payroll errors, poor rota management, lack of access to rest facilities and hot food, and unnecessarily repeating training – persist.”

NHSE has issued a “10 point plan” aimed at improving the working lives of 75,000 resident doctors. It says: “While some progress has been made, it has been too slow, and many still face unfair and inconsistent working conditions.”

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Source: HSJ, 29 August 2025