Need to know
For #TeamEEAST Last updated: 24 April 2024 at 00:26
Ensuring the health, safety and wellbeing of our people and patients is our utmost priority.
To comply with Health and Safety Executive (HSE) legislation and the working time directive (WTD) the Trust has reviewed our approach to the recording and monitoring of working time and introduced new processes with effect from today (1st February).
A set of FAQs has been produced to provide you with advice and guidance on the new approach, supported by comprehensive working time guidelines and the relevant forms you will need – these are all available internally on the HR pages of East24. The FAQs include information on the working time opt out agreement and your roles and responsibilities in relation to accurately recording your working time so it is important you take the time to read these and familiarise yourselves with their content.
Meeting the provisions of the working time regulations within the Trust is challenging, not least as a result of the significant increase in demand for our services and our identified capacity gap. Many of you work overtime to support us to deliver patient facing services and it is important that we make sure that the hours you work do not negatively impact on your health.
In order to manage working time effectively, the Trust requires all staff who are rostered on the Global Rostering System (GRS) to provide regular, accurate information on their working time in a way that is transparent and provides clear evidence to the HSE about our legal requirements.
So that we can do this effectively we need all of these staff to complete the daily incidental overtime form and a new monthly timesheet (found on East24), which includes other information such as secondary employment (see the definition of what constitutes as working time in the FAQs).
This information will be input on to GRS and will be reviewed by your manager weekly to ensure that you are not working excessive hours, as well as to ensure that you are paid correctly.
For the avoidance of doubt, you must complete the daily incidental overtime form and monthly timesheet with effect from today (1st February) regardless of whether you have opted out of the 48-hour average working week. This ensures that managers can monitor working time and ensure that staff are supported to take the relevant rest breaks and not to work so many hours that they suffer fatigue.
Staff who do not complete the daily incidental overtime form (where incidental overtime has occurred) will not be paid for any incidental overtime retrospectively claimed, except in exceptional circumstances.
The Trust aims to implement GRS electronic timesheets within the next 12-months, but in the meantime these new reporting processes must be followed. We are looking at a more efficient way of achieving this in the short term and will update you on this shortly.
Additional administrative support will be provided to support the inputting of incidental overtime and working time data and managed locally.
Full support and training will be provided to managers to ensure compliance with working time regulations. In addition to the forms, guidance and reports already produced, an operational group is working to develop documentation to support the consistent application of these new processes.
If you have any queries please raise these with your line manager in the first instance.
Published 1st February, 2017