| 27 April 2022
Create and amend accurate, fair, LTFT work patterns, easily.
“Regardless of the reason, the practicalities of working LTFT can be difficult. Balancing work and personal commitments can often be demanding and exhausting, and deficiencies in rota design and rostering can exacerbate feelings they are not achieving as they might wish in either area.”
Identifying individual needs, facilitating flexible working patterns, and providing consistency and stability (with sufficient notice for changes) are key to underpin the process of good rota design and rostering for LTFT doctors, allowing them to be effective team members in helping meet service needs.”
-The Good Rostering Guide, produced by the BMA and NHS Employers.
The number of junior doctors working LTFT has increased greatly in recent years. We must ensure that their working hours are safe, fair and protect their well-being, and while doing so, we need to consider the additional pressure this puts upon the medical staffing teams, particularly as they prepare for a new rotation.
When creating our Custom Rostering System (CRS), Skills for Health engaged with NHS Employers and the BMA to ensure LTFT can be managed more effectively and efficiently. Our team of rostering consultants, system developers and implementation managers have many years of experience, including working in rostering for the NHS. In developing CRS to be the best doctor compliance and rostering system, they have become experts in LTFT rota design.
CRS has a range of features specifically aimed at simplifying LTFT rota design, including duty counts, duty summaries and weekly hours counts, that increase efficiency and reduce the likelihood of error. Duplicating a pattern is simple and each individualised pattern is built from this ‘parent’ plan, meaning that you’re not starting from scratch each and every time. If someone working a 26 week rota has a non-working day, you make that adjustment once, not 26 times.
Also, navigating around CRS is intuitive and, when amendments are required, perhaps due to a last-minute staffing change, editing is easy – often 60 times faster than on other systems. What currently takes you hours, will take you minutes in CRS.
