{"id":10103,"date":"2025-08-25T05:08:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T04:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rldatix.com\/en-uki\/?p=10103"},"modified":"2026-04-07T14:42:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T13:42:24","slug":"the-journey-to-bring-great-western-hospitals-medics-onto-e-rostering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rldatix.com\/en-uki\/resources\/the-journey-to-bring-great-western-hospitals-medics-onto-e-rostering\/","title":{"rendered":"The journey to bring Great Western Hospitals\u2019 medics onto e-rostering"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust consists of one acute hospital (Great Western Hospital) and community services that run across Swindon and Wiltshire. And community services that run across Swindon and Wiltshire. The Trust employs over 5,500 staff, has 450 acute beds and oversees an average of 1.2m patient contacts every year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the Trust had moved the majority of its Agenda for Change workforce over to digital rostering with Optima<\/a>, medics were still relying on spreadsheets to manage their rotas and leave scheduling. This was a significant barrier to greater consistency and transparency in workforce management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trust leaders wanted to invest in extending full digital rostering capabilities to its medic workforce, with the aim of improving rostering across the entire organisation. A plan to extend e-rostering was put into action in March 2022, starting with teams working in obstetrics and gynaecology, before a wider roll out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The result was that all rosters that formed part of the project scope were dual running across legacy systems and Optima<\/a> by 31 October 2023 and all went fully live from 31 March 2024. Alongside the implementation of the system itself, the Trust created a group of dedicated Admin Roster Co-ordinators to decrease the amount of time medics were spending on managing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The challenge<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The rosters for most of Great Western Hospitals\u2019 Agenda for Change staff were moved onto Optima in March 2018. While this streamlined the process of rostering and managing leave for a great deal of medical staff, alongside improving oversight of on-call shifts, medics within the organisation were still relying on spreadsheets to manage their rostering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cOne of the biggest drivers for moving rostering for medics over to an electronic system was that everyone had their own Excel spreadsheets on their own computer drives. That meant that it was difficult to have the consistency and transparency needed for effective workforce planning. Having medics\u2019 rostering on a digital system would bring it in line with our Agenda for Change staff.\u201d<\/p>\nDeborah Tapley
Workforce Systems Manager, Great Western Hospital<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

As part of the drive to strengthen oversight and transparency in rostering, the Trust wanted to accompany the expansion of Optima<\/a> within its workforce with the introduction of Admin Roster Co-ordinators. These new roles, set to be based in each division, would offer valuable support to clinicians, who frequently noted the amount of time it would take them to manage their shifts and work schedules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Trust employs over 5,500 staff, has 450 acute beds and oversees an average of 1.2m patient contacts every year.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The solution<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The Medical Rostering project team had a timeframe of between 18-24 months to complete an effective transition of all relevant medical divisions onto the digital system. To ensure an effective implementation, the team convened a monthly oversight group with involvement from the executive leadership team. The project team also drew up a medical rostering policy after extensive consultation with staff and their workforce representatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The team, which included three whole time equivalents to support the implementation, worked in partnership with RLDatix to prepare the first stage of the expanded implementation, which saw them build the obstetrics and gynaecology rosters. This experience would inform future parts of the implementation project and began a process that saw usage and performance metrics sent out to the trust\u2019s executive leadership and divisional directors to give reassurance that the project was on track.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Deborah and her colleagues put in place a monthly oversight group to both review progress and act as a forum for the trust\u2019s divisions to report and feedback on developments. The oversight group included members of Great Western Hospitals\u2019 executive team, ensuring that the implementation was treated as a key priority for the organisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Admin Roster Co-ordinator roles were created to assist medics and relevant staff in managing work schedules and rotas, with each division taking ownership for their own co-ordinators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In order to ensure clinicians were comfortable and confident in using Optima<\/a>, the project team went to great lengths to formulate a medical rostering policy. They worked in partnership with several groups internally, in addition to carrying out robust consultation with workforce representatives from the British Medical Association to formulate an effective policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cWe worked with the BMA to put together a medical rostering policy and the BMA certainly helped as it was able to support us and give constructive ideas around the policy.\u201d<\/p>\nDeborah Tapley
Workforce Systems Manager, Great Western Hospital<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

What our clinicians say<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cThe medics like the ability to view rosters by location and activity functions. This saves a great deal of admin time when managing our working hours enabling us to spend more time caring for patients. What\u2019s more, the teams are happier using the system, which means that they have been more willing to make use of it.\u201d

\u201cUsing Loop on our smartphones and devices means that we can quickly and easily check shift patterns and, if needed, raise queries on the go. That makes life easier, especially when I can quickly check those things when it\u2019s convenient for me.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Benefits and next steps<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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