Overview
This SOP sets out the stages to be followed prior to all bank holiday periods, to ensure full-service provision in the operational rota over an extended Out of Hours operating period.
Standard Bank holiday periods this applies to are:
- Easter
- Early May Bank Holiday
- Late May bank holiday
- August bank holiday
- Christmas & New Year period
Additional bank holidays may arise for special occasions, this SOP also applies there.
The IUC Operational Leads are responsible for ensuring that planning meetings are held in a timely way prior to the bank holiday to ensure that staffing, stock and other resources are all sufficient to cope with demand.
The Team Managers are responsible for checking the profile of bank holiday rotas in rota master and ensuring that all shifts are filled, and that any gaps in the rota are managed proactively. Team Managers are also responsible for ensuring all bases have enough stock to cover the period.
The Rota Team are responsible for providing a rota that reflects the needs of the service in providing sufficient resource throughout the bank holiday.
The Service Delivery Team is responsible for ensuring that all areas are represented at the bank holiday planning meeting, to allow informed decisions to be made regarding contingency planning.
The Facilities Team are responsible for ensuring there are sufficient prescriptions, medications, equipment, consumable items at all treatment centres and that the cars are fit for purpose for the bank holiday period.
The Head of Business Information and Projects is responsible for ensuring the Directory of services reflects planned opening times, and for ensuring the platform for the 24-hour professional line is configured appropriately between Osprey Court and Marksbury Road Treatment Centre.
The first planning meeting will be held at least six weeks prior to the Bank Holiday to review anticipated demand and to agree resources required. The default position is that all bases will be open as per usual Saturday/Sunday opening times on a bank holiday, unless particularly low attendance is anticipated (e.g. special Royal Bank Holidays/Christmas Day). The Rota team will build the rotas, these will be checked by the Team Managers and will start the process of allocating shifts and sending out requests for the required additional resource.
Planning meetings are then held on a regular basis up until the bank holiday (i.e. as part of the weekly team management meeting) and any concerns discussed.
A final planning meeting will be held on the last working day before the bank holiday break.
The BH planning meeting will review:
- Clinical and Operational staffing,
- Options to manage capacity with clinical rota adjustments.
For each bank holiday a team manager will take the lead for filling the additional bank holiday day(s) e.g. the Friday or Monday. The rota team will take the lead on filling the weekends as these should be largely populated with default shifts already.
The Team Manager taking responsibility will be agreed in the Service Delivery Team meeting at least 8 weeks in advance of the Bank Holiday.
Gaps in the rota are filled either by existing staff or bank staff. Vacant shifts are sent out by e mail to all staff. These emails are sent from a designated e mail address (iuc.managers@nhs.net), which all team managers are able to access.
Staff are encouraged to reply with their availability to this central point of contact by a predetermined date. If staff reply to a team manager’s personal e mail address, the team manager should forward this to the rota email address for clarity and transparency.
Once the deadline for shift application has been reached, the responsible team manager will allocate these shifts as fairly as possible and reply to all staff by email. If there are multiple applications for the same shift they should allocate with the following considerations:
- Does the member of staff have other shifts across that bank holiday weekend
- Did they work the previous bank holiday weekend
- Are they able to do other roles
- Are there other shift options on that day that would be suitable?
Shifts left unfilled after the general e mail release advertising availability, will be covered by further emails and a personal approach (telephone or text) to individuals by team managers.
An Operational Lead Manager is responsible for ensuring the service is in a state of operational readiness and resilience immediately prior to the weekend, and for ensuring appropriate escalation in the case of insufficient resource.
A de-brief is held in the week following the bank holiday to review issues and identify actions for improvement. The checklist is therefore an iterative document and should not be considered inclusive.
A weekend planning meeting is held every Friday at 12.30pm.
The weekend planning meeting will review:
- Clinical and Operational staffing availability against plan
- Options to manage capacity with rota adjustments.
- Need to escalate any shortfall for Director approval.
In addition, the Team Managers will discuss the bank holiday rota in their weekly meeting once planning for that bank holiday has commenced.
Tables
| Date | Version | Author | Comments |
| 14/04/2016 | 2 | GWHITE | Updated to reflect new roles and responsibilities |
| 27/02/2018 | 3 | JMARSHALL | Updated to reflect responsibilities |
| 28/03/2018 | 4 | NRYAN | Updated process and roles |
| 01/06/2023 | 5 | AMELLOR | Review and Update |