Staff & Recruitment

Rota Monitoring for Templates

NHSGGC is committed to providing New Deal compliant and educationally sound working pattern for all resident doctors on training rotas. Therefore, a robust monitoring arrangement was put in place to ensure that rota templates are compliant, and to highlight issues that may lead to non-compliance. The purpose of monitoring is to ensure that the rota working pattern that has been approved by the department, compliance teams, NHS Education for Scotland and the Scottish Government is fit for purpose; that the rota is suitable for the work you are doing.

Resident doctor rota monitoring will take place every 6 months, over a 2 week period. All training grade staff are expected to record hours of work and rest accurately by completing a set of electronic monitoring forms, and the opening page of the electronic system for monitoring has a validation statement you will electronically sign to this effect. All completed documentation is returned to your Monitoring Officer for analysis in accordance with New Deal and WTR regulations. Once rota monitoring for your template is complete, you will receive a copy of the results within the time limits laid out.

Guidance on completing the DRS online diary can be found here

Under no circumstances during resident doctor rota monitoring, should staff falsely inflate or decrease the record of hours or rest or be requested to do so. If you are put under any pressure to amend your monitoring information, please contact Medical Staffing.

Rota Templates

Our rota templates must comply with two sets of regulations

1. New Deal: is a package of measures designed to improve the conditions under which doctors in training worked. It provides guidance on hours of work, living and working conditions for all doctors in training
2. Working Time Regulations (WTR): is a directive from the Council of Europe enshrined in UK law in 1998, to protect the Health and Safety of workers by setting minimum requirements for working hours, rest periods and leave

NHSGGC are responsible for ensuring that resident medical staff can work in compliance with New Deal and WTR requirements. Non-compliance could result in financial penalty to the NHS board in which you are working, and a possible loss of training posts for that department

The 3 main types of working templates are detailed below:

Full Shift Rota (most resident doctors work on this pattern)

• Work carried out is intensive and continuous throughout the 24-hour period.
• Shifts do not exceed 14hours.
• A minimum of 8 hours of rest between shifts is required.
• Natural breaks are required (at least 30 minutes of continuous rest after 4 hours of continuous working).

On Call Rota

• Work is considered to be low intensity, particularly during OOH.
• Normal working pattern exists Monday-Friday for all trainees on the rota, and then an on-call person takes over to cover the remainder of each 24hour period.
• Frequency of on call cover depends on the number of trainees on the rota.
• Duty periods cannot exceed 32 hours on weekdays, or 56 hours at the weekend.
• At least 12 hours of rest between duty periods is required.
• Doctors are expected to spend half of their on call duty period undisturbed, of which a minimum of 5 hours is continuous rest between 10pm and 8am.

Partial Shift & 24hr Partial Shift Rota

• Work is considered to be higher intensity than on call, but less so than shift working.
• Duty periods do not exceed 16hours or 24hours depending.
• Natural breaks are required during normal working hours, and at least ¼ of the out-of-hours duty period should be spent undisturbed.

There are no strict rules about the total hours worked in any week, but average weekly hours must be under 48 over a 26-week reference period (for full time working).

Doctors in training must follow a rota template which has been approved. The rota is agreed, prior to being put in place, by the department in which it will be implemented, the compliance team at the NHS board (for New Deal and WTR) and is reviewed by the Scottish Government. Changes in your working pattern (e.g. swapping a shift) could result in non-compliance (for example, insufficient rest period after a run of nightshifts). Therefore, any changes must be discussed in advance with the rota master to ensure that they will not lead to problems.

The H&I laboratory is located on Level 1 of the Laboratory Medicine Building at Gartnavel General Hospital (GGH), Glasgow.

It offers a comprehensive range of molecular, serological and cellular tests which support solid organ transplantation (kidney and heart), haematopoietic progenitor cell (HPC) transplantation, disease association testing and pharmacogenetic testing.

• BRIS Telephone: 0141 242 9632
• Email: ggc.glasgowsmrl@nhs.scot

The Bacterial Respiratory Infections Service (BRIS) (Formerly known as the Scottish Haemophilus, Legionella, Meningococcus and Pneumococcus Reference Laboratory (SHLMPRL)) was formed in 2009. Since November 2013, BRIS has been located within the New Lister Building, Glasgow Royal Infirmary, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. We are commissioned by National Services Division for Scotland, with clinical and scientific advice from Public Health Scotland (PHS).

The Bacterial Respiratory Infections Service provides a national reference service for the detection and characterisation of human Haemophilus influenzae, Legionella, Meningococcus, Pneumococcus and Group A Streptococcus infections, as well as associated environmental isolates. We perform Bordetella pertussis serology, Legionella urinary antigen testing, M.I.C testing and genomic detection of target organisms within clinical samples. The laboratory collaborates with Public Health Scotland (PHS) to provide data on the epidemiology of the aforementioned organisms in Scotland.

We are accredited by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) UKAS Medical 8514 (Accredited to ISO 15189:2012). If you would like more information regarding our schedule of accreditation and scope of service, you can find this on the UKAS website.

The Scottish Microbiology Reference Laboratories are part of the Acute Services Division of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. We are based in the New Lister Building at Glasgow Royal Infirmary. SMiRL is comprised of five different laboratories that provide a specialist service for a number of different microorganisms. The SMiRL combined user manual can be accessed for further information about the services we provide. You can also use the links below to access the specific laboratory sections.

The Scottish Government have provided funding for a one year pilot of an Enterococcal Surveillance Service aiming to describe the genetic epidemiology of invasive E. faecium and resistant E. faecium and E. faecalis in Scotland. Scotland has a high prevalence of vancomycin resistance amongst invasive E. faecium isolates. To investigate the reasons for this, Boards are kindly requested to submit isolates as described in the below communications. Limited outbreak support continues to be available and it is hoped that an improved understanding of the background epidemiology will allow improved outbreak support in future. Please fill in the below request form when submitting isolates for this pilot study.

Further Information