WTD compliant rotas

Struggling to create WTD compliant rotas? Help is at hand if you are faced with the task of designing WTD compliant rotas for junior doctors. A free-to-use database of NHS rotas compiled by colleagues in trusts, foundation trusts and strategic health authorities is being launched on the healthcare workforce portal.

Here's how it works:

Step one:
A front page introduction to the rota database, detailing how it works

Step two:
A search page where you can search by:

• Specialty
• Grade
• Pay band
• Hospital type
• Shift pattern
• SHA
• Number of doctors, or
• A mixture of these criteria.

Step three:
A range of rotas are displayed according to your search criteria

Step four:
Click on your chosen rota(s) to display details of working patterns.

The database consists of over 100 different rotas submitted by colleagues around the country. Dave Waghorn, a member of the development team commented, "This database means you don't have to start designing rotas from scratch. Someone else working in the NHS has probably faced the same challenges when trying to design a rota in say the general medicine department in large district general hospital. The rota they designed is freely available for you to see on the database so no need to 're-invent the wheel'. There's plenty of scope for other people to add to the database by submitting rotas they have designed, in fact we would welcome the chance to enhance the scope of this learning resource. Of course all rotas are anonymised before being added to the database."

Supporting information, in the form of a narrative section on each rota, examines factors affecting the implementation of the rota such as the implementation of new ways of working and the introduction of new roles, for example the advanced practitioner role.

Although the rotas on the database are not being held up as examples of best practice they do provide a diverse range of templates as a starting point for designing rotas, as well as providing valuable information on how other NHS organisations are using their staff to manage medical staffing and achieve WTD compliance.

For further information contact: wrt.enquiries@wrtnhs.org

If you would like to learn more about designing your own rotas, why not attend one of the workshops happening within your SHA?

Designing Rotas for Doctors in Training

September saw the start of the roll out of a programme of workshops across each SHA to support skill development in designing rotas for doctors in training, to aid WTD 2009 compliance.

Delivered by workforce leads from the East of England and Workforce Review Team, the workshops target staff within medical personnel who have responsibility for supporting the process.

Jacky Beaumont, senior workforce consultant, East of England, is leading on some of the workshops "The workshops are practical and use group working and action planning to equip trusts to engage proactively with clinicians and managers, to develop compliant rotas. As well as looking at aspects such as suitability of working patterns, we will be sharing resources available with examples of rotas developed by trusts that are already compliant and an options appraisal approach to building solutions."

To see if there are places still available for workshops running into the New Year, please visit the event registration page.