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Supporting attendance to work over the festive period

December 20, 2018

Message from Rachel Barlow, Chief Operating Officer

Thank you to everyone who is working over Christmas and New Year to support our patients and colleagues. I know it’s a busy time for us all, so your dedication and hard work is very much valued and appreciated.

In order to ensure safety for our patients and the smooth running of our services, it is critical that colleagues who are due to attend work do so as planned. I want to remind you how we manage attendance in our organisation with some guidance to help ensure we are fully staffed.

  1. Medical colleagues reporting as sick must phone their consultant/consultant on call.
  1. Clinical/non-medical colleagues in patient facing wards and departments should:
  • In hours: As per our policy, call the ward or departmental shift leader who will inform the senior leader managing attendance for the clinical group (after providing counselling and support). Group attendance leads are listed below.
  • Out of hours: All sickness calls should go through the duty manager via bleep or switchboard to their mobile phone.

Each member of staff reporting in sick will receive a follow up phone call from a local  senior leader (see the rota at the end of this message for your group lead) during the day time, ensuring everyone has the support they need, there are return to work plans, schedule a return to work interview date/time and where necessary, prompt access to occupational health.

There will be night to day handover between the duty manager and senior leader at group level by email to follow up sickness calls received at night, as well as a daily executive review of attendance and supportive intervention for any hotspot outlying areas.

  1. Short notice leave/requests for alternative leave or changes to the rosters should only be agreed if the full staffing requirements are met for the period.

Group attendance leads are detailed below:

Please keep safe and healthy over the festive period and thank you again for your commitment to our patients over this period. Thank you for your hard work.