Medical job planning policy

1 Introduction

The job planning process will take account of the trust’s strategic objectives and priorities, as well as the needs and aspirations of individual doctors to facilitate the planning and delivery of high-quality care. It will also provide opportunities for personal and professional development to help drive quality improvement in line with the present and future needs of patients.

The trust recognises the importance of and supports the active involvement of its medical staff in research and teaching. All consultant staff are expected to be able to contribute to education and have the opportunity if they wish to be actively involved in research. The trust recognises that revalidation focuses attention on continuous professional development (CPD) and the demonstration of improved patient outcomes. Job plans must identify continuous professional development needs, improve patient outcomes and define these activities.

Decisions about human resources are delegated by the board of directors to the chief executive and their team. Principal responsibility for implementing the arrangements will sit with the chief medical officer. The chief operating officer and care group directors must be content with the resource allocation of job plans in aggregate. The care group medical directors will lead the specific job planning process for their care group in conjunction with other leaders within the care group but will operate within trust wide patterns and expectations.

Job planning is a systematic activity to produce clarity of expectation for employer and employee about the use of time and resources to meet individual and service objectives. It provides an opportunity to align individual professional developments with service and organisational developments.

A relevant job plan is a prospective agreement that sets out a doctor’s duties, responsibilities and personal objectives for the coming year and their relationship with the trust’s wider service objectives. The job planning process is also an opportunity for the doctor to share concerns, challenges and potential opportunities related to their work.

The contracts of employment require doctors to engage in the review of their job plan annually. The doctor and their medical manager should meet for a job plan review at least every twelve months. Both parties are expected to bring relevant information to that discussion. If there is a change to the role or function, then the same colleagues will meet to review the job plan.

The job planning meeting will cover all the doctor’s professional roles and responsibilities including clinical work, teaching, education, research and managerial responsibilities. It should occur following appraisal and take account of the doctors’ personal development plan (PDP) and personal objectives agreed at appraisal. Either party can request a review of the job plan in the interim period if there is a change.

2 Purpose

The purpose of this document is to set out Rotherham Doncaster and South Humber NHS Foundation Trust’s (the trust or RDaSH) policy on job planning.

This policy applies to NHS consultants and specialty doctors (and other non-consultant career grades) employed by the trust (including those on secondment and locums) and clinical academics employed by a university for whom the trust is their prime NHS base and who hold an honorary contract with the trust.

For joint appointments where the contract of employment is held at another trust the responsibility for job planning rests with the employing trust. For joint appointments, there will be a dialogue between the relevant trusts and the doctor.

For clinical academics, the process will be undertaken in conjunction with their substantive employer according to Follett principles.

Job planning will be an iterative and collaborative process that will develop over time. The principle is that all parties will commit to transparency and equality, avoidance of micromanaging and ensure that job planning allows transformation of services and enables doctors to work at their potential and develop their skills. It is not intended that senior professionals will have to account for every moment of their working week or month.

3 Definitions and explanations of terms used

Definitions and further guidance on terminology is provided in the relevant terms and conditions of service and in the joint

British Medical Association and NHS Employers (2012), A UK guide to job planning for specialty doctors and associate specialists.

NHS Employers and British Medical Association, a guide to consultant job planning (July 2011, version 1) annex 1 “Job plan components”.

4 Scope

Job planning is the key mechanism through which doctors and managers shared responsibility for providing the best possible care within the available resources can be agreed, monitored and delivered. In accordance with the new consultant contract (2003) and the specialty and associate specialist (SAS) doctors’ contract (2008), this document is based on the requirement that all doctors, including those holding older contracts, will participate in annual job planning. Whilst doctors have a responsibility to engage in job planning the Trust also has a responsibility to ensure that job planning is performed annually at a minimum.

Both consultants who have remained on the old contract and those appointed on the new contract are expected to participate in job planning. The two contracts have different arrangements for scheduling and timetabling of activities, and the currency of the old contract is notional half days (NHDs) and, for the new contract, programmed activities (PAs). Similarly, all specialty and associate specialist doctors, whether on the 2008 or pre-2008 national contracts, are expected to participate in job planning.

Doctors employed by the trust will have an agreed job plan within three months of the commencement of their employment with the trust.

This policy will not be prejudicial to, nor take precedence over, the agreed national terms and conditions of the relevant contracts of employment.

5 Responsibilities, accountabilities and duties

5.1 Chief executive

Has overall responsibility for ensuring that job planning is conducted annually across the organisation and in line with NHS England requirements and accordingly will be the second stage of internal and local mediation.

5.2 Chief medical officer

Has overall responsibility for monitoring compliance with this policy

Will be involved where there is a failure to agree job planning at the care group medical director level and in first stage mediation regarding the process.

Will ensure that job planning takes place for the care group medical directors and for any doctors in Backbone teams.

5.3 Care group medical directors

Will ensure that job planning takes place for the doctors within their care group.

Support the chief medical officer to review job planning, benchmarking and quality assurance information.

The care group medical director will normally be the medical manager for the doctors in their care group but at the care group medical director’s discretion this can be delegated to another medically qualified colleague. Where no care group medical director is in post a medically qualified colleague will be allocated by the chief medical officer.

5.4 Doctors

Have a responsibility to engage in job planning on an annual basis with their medical manager and care group director or service Manager both individually and with the team in which they work. The production of a team job plan for the multidisciplinary team in which the doctor works may also be beneficial. A current job plan is required under the relevant terms and conditions of employment and there is also a contractual responsibility to engage in job planning.

5.5 Care group director

Responsible for supporting the job planning process, including the provision of relevant information and participation in job planning where appropriate. There should be scrutiny of all job plans within a care group by the care group director.

5.6 Service managers

Responsible for supporting the job planning process, including the provision of relevant information and participation in job planning where appropriate.

5.7 Head of human resources and medical staffing

Responsible for the provision of the central administrative support of the job planning process.

6 Procedure

Job planning for all consultants and specialty and associate specialist (SAS) doctors will take place annually and will commence in February and be completed by the end of May. Job planning may also take place during the year on an interim basis to reflect service changes, additional consultants within a specialty or other significant changes in workload. This should be done as soon as practicable following a change or prior to the commencement of a new role or duties if possible. An interim review should normally be held within 3 months of a change of duties as a maximum.

An agreed job plan is a prospective agreement about the activities to be undertaken over a maximum period of the next twelve months. Job planning meetings will be scheduled to follow closely after the completion of the doctors’ annual appraisal. All job plans should be finalised within two months of the start of the financial year. Where a job plan has not been agreed because it is in dispute, and is subject to ongoing mediation or appeals processes, the individual should not suffer any detriment.

Preparation is key to effective job planning. To facilitate an informed discussion at the job planning meeting, those involved should bring all relevant data needed to plan activities for the coming year. Job planning is about agreeing prospective work in the future and is not a diary exercise reflecting current working practices. If helpful doctors may choose to complete a work diary if it will inform the job planning discussion such as to evidence workloads or amount of time certain duties take.

Doctors should also supply the previous job plan and the personal development plan (PDP) from their last appraisal and consider the questions at appendix A, including the output of activities undertaken in supporting professional activity (SPA) time, relevant specialty advice, evidence of the benefits of any external duties and individual and team performance data.

Medical managers and service managers should ensure the provision of relevant information which should include service, care group or trust development plans and objectives.

The job plan meeting will usually start with a review of the objectives from the previous job plan and should then focus on achieving a clear set of mutually agreed objectives and how they can be achieved and this information should be recorded on the electronic job planning system. A minimum of one hour should be set aside for the meeting at a time when all parties are free from other commitments. The job planning meeting will take place between the individual and their medical manager and will include input from the care group director or service manager. This input can take the form of outputs from previous meetings with managers or service level job plannings but may also include manager attendance in the meeting, where this has been agreed with the doctor. If the job plan cannot be finalised at the first meeting, then a subsequent meeting should be timetabled to occur within two weeks.

Whilst there are agreed processes for mediation and appeal, it is best if the parties can reach an agreed job plan. However, use of these processes will occur as need be to facilitate the timeliness of a concluded set of trust wide job plans, which will always be in place before the end of quarter 1 each year.

6.1 Drafting of job plans

6.1.1 Service level meetings

Many doctors now work in broad clinical teams and individual job planning will often be made easier if it is preceded by the agreement of joint service objectives. This also creates an opportunity to look at arrangements for supporting professional activity (SPA) cover and cover arrangements for colleagues that work less than full time for example. All doctors will be expected to have individual job plans but it would be usual for there to be service level meetings initially before going on to have individual meetings to ensure that service level needs are understood. The trust will provide draft job plans to the doctors prior to the job planning meeting.

6.1.2 Consistency across care groups and trust

A sample of proposed job plans from care groups will be reviewed in trust wide meetings to examine for consistency to ensure that there is fairness and that individual job plans sit within trust guidance. This committee will be the Medical Job Plan Consistency Committee (MJPCC).

6.1.3 Final joint sign off is between the doctor and medical manager

Before formal agreement and sign off can take place, the medical manager, in conjunction with other managers within the care group, will need to match the proposed job plan, along with those of other doctors and staff in their clinical area to the service and care group plans. There are circumstances where review needs to be sought from the chief medical officer or chief executive prior to the medical manager signing off a job plan. Final sign off will be by the doctor and their medical manager within the agreed delegation parameters of the trust.

For job plans exceeding 10 programmed activities (PAs) these need to be reviewed by the chief medical officer prior to sign off by the doctor’s medical manager. If a job plan exceeds 12 programmed activities these need to be agreed by the chief executive prior to sign off by the doctor’s medical manager. Any job plan containing external duties requires co-agreement from the chief executive and chief medical officer, whether these are funded or unfunded. Support will not be unreasonably withheld where the balance of the job plan is agreed and service objectives within a multidisciplinary team are being met.

Once agreed, job plans will be available for other members of the clinical team to use to help plan the management and delivery of services.

All job plans are to be completed on the electronic job planning system and admin support will be available to complete these.

6.2 Components of the job plan: objectives

The job plan will include appropriate personal objectives that have been agreed at the job planning meeting and will describe the relationship between these objectives and service objectives, on the understanding that the delivery of the objectives may be affected by change in circumstances outside of the doctor’s control. Personal objectives will:

• reflect different developing phases in the doctor’s career
• reflect the doctor’s development aims
• reflect the doctor’s education and training objectives

The job plan will set out the relevant service objectives for the team and the relationship to the doctor’s objectives. Objectives may refer to protocols, policies, procedures and work patterns to be followed. Output and outcome measures must be reasonable and agreement reached.

Service objectives may relate to:

• quality
• activity and efficiency
• clinical outcomes
• clinical standards
• local service objectives
• management of resources
• service development
• multidisciplinary working

Care group and trust objectives will be taken into account at the job plan meeting to ensure that the job plan fits with the overall aims.

Objectives should follow the specific, measurable, achievable and agreed, realistic, timed and tracked (SMART) formula.

6.3 Components of the job plans: activity

The default is that all activities should be identified in the seven-day job plan timetable. Flexibility (time and space shifting) in the delivery of the weekly activities may be required to meet the agreed amount of activity in the interests of patients, the doctor and the trust. These changes will be by prospective agreement between the doctor and the care group medical director or care group director. Activities undertaken on a less than weekly basis are to be indicated on the weekly timetable using the prefix “1 in 3, 4 or 5 weeks or months” as required.

All activities must state the start and finish times, the place where undertaken and the activity to be delivered.

The job plan will record (in the objectives section) an agreed annual amount of activity over a typical 42 week working year calculated from the weekly timetable. It is expected that this work will be undertaken at the time and place indicated in the weekly timetable, unless otherwise agreed.

For doctors who have agreed additional responsibilities or external duties the amount will be based around a lower number of working weeks but will be agreed at the annual job plan review or within the year if appropriate.

Annual and study or professional leave is included in the typical 42 weeks per annum.

6.4 Components of the job plan: programmed activities

6.4.1 Direct clinical care (DCC) activities

Where applicable the annual number of the following direct clinical care activities to be delivered by the doctor (or group of doctors as part of an agreed team job plan) will be specified in the job plan.

• Outpatient clinics.
• Multidisciplinary team assessments.
• Ward rounds.
• Acute on-call days or weeks.
• Telephone advice.
• Clinical administration.
• Community assessment.
• Care programme approach or case conferences.
• Mental Health Act assessments and tribunals.
• Clinical supervision of junior colleagues, including multidisciplinary team members.

This list is not exhaustive and will be subject to development.

For most colleagues it would be expected that for each session of patient contact work the patient contact would comprise 75% of the session and clinical administration arising from this 25%. This will vary individually and is intended for guide purposes.

6.4.2 Non-direct clinical care activities

6.4.2.1 Supporting professional activities (SPA)

The trust is committed to paying for reasonable, agreed amounts of supporting professional activity (SPA) activities which are defined in the relevant terms and conditions. It is not expected that all doctors will undertake all of these activities and it is likely that the supporting professional activity time within job plans will vary.

1 programmed activity would be expected to be used for continuous professional development and preparation for appraisal or job planning. Supporting professional activities time above this 1 programmed activity would be expected to be used for agreed supporting professional activities.

Generally, this agreed supporting professional activity would fall into three categories:

• education
• leadership
• research

The trust does recognise some other supporting professional activities which fall into the category of other, but most job plans should not solely include supporting professional activities falling into this category.

The clinical leadership executive, care groups and directorates will take reasonable steps to protect this supporting professional activities time, working with medical colleagues.

The proportion of supporting professional activities or direct clinical care splits will be subject to individual job planning discussions but the trust recommendations are specified in the doctor’s handbook.

6.4.2.2 Continuing professional development (CPD)

As defined by the relevant Royal College, includes:

• clinical continuous professional development
• professional continuous professional development
• academic continuous professional development
• in addition, different colleges recognise personal or self-accredited continuous professional development

The trust places a large amount of emphasis on learning. To promote learning throughout the trust there are learning half days every month. These are protected times where the trust runs a bank holiday level service. Dates are published in advance via the corporate calendar. There is an expectation that doctors attend 80% of these learning half days.

Outside of continuous professional development, preparing for appraisal and job planning the trust recognises the following categories of supporting professional activity (SPA) activity:

6.4.2.3 Leadership

This category includes formal leadership roles within the Trust such as:

• care group medical director
• lead medic in a directorate
• lead roles, for example, mortality

6.4.2.4 Education

This category includes those holding formal medical education leadership roles such as director of postgraduate medical education, director of undergraduate medical education and other trust education leadership roles.

It also includes activity such as being an educational supervisor for a clinician be they a medical or non-medical colleague.

Activity related to teaching medical students and other colleagues would also fall into this category.

6.4.3 Research

This category includes doctors taking part in research activities such as being a principal Investigator or sub-principal investigator. Other activities would be development in preparation for trial work and research preparedness. It would also include developing and progressing other research projects.

6.4.4 Other

• Mentoring: either as a mentor or mentee and relevant training for the role.
• Quality improvement work.
• Appraisal: being an appraiser and relevant training for this.
• External duties, these require chief executive officer and chief medical officer agreement.

This list is not exhaustive. But ordinarily supporting professional activity (SPA) time will include one of research, education and leadership, or more, rather than simply other.

6.4.5 Additional programmed activities

Occasionally a practitioner may be offered extra programmed activities to undertake specific work or to reflect regular additional duties or activities that cannot be contained within the standard 10 programmed activities contract.

This would be time limited for up to 12 months or until the next job planning meeting. Either the doctor or their medical manager is able to give notice on these additional programmes activities (APAs) prior to the agreed end of the period. The usual mutual notice period is three months. It is therefore essential to determine what are the core parts of a job plan and what activities are additional programmes activities when drafting the job plan.

Job plans exceeding 10 programme activities require additional scrutiny as set out in the sign off process.

6.4.5.1 On call arrangements

The job plan will also reference the agreed on-call arrangements for the Doctor including the availability supplement as well as any direct clinical care programmed activities for the on call work.

6.5 Methods to facilitate effective job planning (by agreement with individuals and teams)

6.5.1 Team job planning

Many doctors now work in teams and individual job planning will often be made easier if it is preceded by the agreement of joint team objectives.

An alternative approach is team job planning, in which the delivery of activity is planned across a team of doctors over the whole year (52 weeks.)

In the event of changed circumstances within year (for example, recruitment delay) then team job planning may be revisited and a revised amount of measurable activity agreed.

6.5.2 Annualisation

Typically, timetables will cover a week but can be extended to cover a number of weeks (for example, where activities vary from week to week) or commitments may be annualised (for example, for doctors working flexibly whose activities may vary at different times of the year) where appropriate and were agreed between doctor and employer.

6.5.3 Collaborative working

Job planning within a service should take into account the need to ensure continuing medical cover.

6.5.4 Cross cover

In accordance with national terms and conditions, there is an expectation of short-term emergency cover between colleagues which is for periods up to 72 hours. Job plans must however be explicit about how work will be stood down or covered for planned leave. This is to protect colleague’s ability to take leave and their wellbeing. Where there are gaps for longer periods that are not covered by existing job planning agreements then the trust will seek to agree arrangements to provide cover.

6.5.5 Flexible working and agile working

The trust recognises the benefits of colleagues being able to work flexible working hours and where possible will attempt to accommodate such requests. This process is detailed in the flexible working people policy. For colleagues working full time hours it would generally be expected that direct clinical care sessions occur over at least 4 days.

Job plans should also be explicit about any agreements that have been made around agile or hybrid working. For most roles the expectation is that a majority of direct clinical care time would be delivered from one of the trust’s sites rather than remotely.

6.6 Pay progression and clinical excellence awards

Adherence to these standards for job planning will form part of the criteria for pay progression and clinical excellence awards.

6.7 Private professional services

Private professional services must be included and declared in the job plan and schedule of programmed activities, even where they take place outside core service hours. All private professional services must be arranged and undertaken in accordance with the Department of Health’s code of conduct for private practice. This requires that providing services for private patients should not prejudice NHS patients’ interests or disrupt NHS services. As part of this, the trust will insist that private practice is not scheduled during job planned activities. Doctors should ensure that private professional services are recorded in the job plan and the quality or timeliness of service for NHS patients is not harmed. Employers may offer up to one extra programmed activity per week to consultants who undertake private practice. For details of these arrangements refer to the appropriate contract or terms and conditions. All doctors should review the trusts conflicts of interest policy and consider whether they need to share any declaration in accordance with the policy.

6.8 Mediation and appeals

Where it has not been possible to agree a job plan (including interim job plan reviews), a mediation procedure and if necessary, an appeal procedure is available.

Mediation and appeals processes should only be used when all other channels have been exhausted. Mediation should be requested within 2 weeks of a failure to agree a job plan by either the medical manager or the doctor. Mediation, at the first stage, would usually be undertaken by the chief medical officer and for this reason the chief medical officer will not usually be involved in initial job planning meetings so that they are able to undertake this mediation role.

Further information on the mediation and appeals processes that will be followed are described in terms and conditions schedule 4 appendix X of the Consultants England (2003) and schedule 5 appendix X for both Associate Specialists England (2008) and Specialty Doctors England (2008). Separate procedures remain extant for those on older contracts.

Where a doctor is employed by more than one NHS organisation, mediation and appeals will be undertaken by the organisation where the issue arises

7 Training implications

7.1 all managers (medical and non-medical) involved in delivering job planning

• How often should this be undertaken: as and when the policy or guidance is updated
• Length of training: 2 hours.
• Delivery method: special meeting.
• Training delivered by whom: medical director or medical directorate manager.
• Where are the records of attendance held: electronic staff record (ESR).

7.2 All career grade medical staff

• How often should this be undertaken: as and when the policy or guidance is updated.
• Length of training: 1 hour.
• Delivery method: special meeting and email updates.
• Training delivered by whom: medical director or medical directorate manager and care group medical directors.
• Where are the records of attendance held: electronic staff record (ESR).

8 Monitoring arrangements

8.1 Participation and completion rate of job plan

• How: collection and review of job plans.
• Who by: medical director or medical directorate manager.
• Reported to: care group governance meetings and board of directors.
• Frequency: once yearly.

8.2 Numbers of mediation and appeals

• How: case by case.
• Who by: medical director or medical directorate manager.
• Reported to: board of directors.
• Frequency: once yearly.

9 Equality impact assessment screening

To access the equality impact assessment for this policy, please email rdash.equalityanddiversity@nhs.net to request the document.

9.1 Privacy, dignity and respect

The NHS Constitution states that all patients should feel that their privacy and dignity are respected while they are in hospital. High Quality Care for All (2008), Lord Darzi’s review of the NHS, identifies the need to organise care around the individual, “not just clinically but in terms of dignity and respect”.

As a consequence, the trust is required to articulate its intent to deliver care with privacy and dignity that treats all service users with respect. Therefore, all procedural documents will be considered, if relevant, to reflect the requirement to treat everyone with privacy, dignity and respect, (when appropriate this should also include how same sex accommodation is provided).

9.1.1 How this will be met

No issues have been identified in relation to this policy.

9.2 Mental Capacity Act (2005)

Central to any aspect of care delivered to adults and young people aged 16 years or over will be the consideration of the individuals’ capacity to participate in the decision-making process. Consequently, no intervention should be carried out without either the individual’s informed consent, or the powers included in a legal framework, or by order of the court.

Therefore, the trust is required to make sure that all staff working with individuals who use our service are familiar with the provisions within the Mental Capacity Act (2005). For this reason all procedural documents will be considered, if relevant to reflect the provisions of the Mental Capacity Act (2005) to ensure that the rights of individual are protected and they are supported to make their own decisions where possible and that any decisions made on their behalf when they lack capacity are made in their best interests and least restrictive of their rights and freedoms.

9.2.1 How this will be met

All individuals involved in the implementation of this policy should do so in accordance with the guiding principles of the Mental Capacity Act (2005) section 1.

10 Links to any other associated documents

See medical appraisal policy.

11 References

• Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (2012), Advice on supporting professional activities in consultant job planning.
• British Medical Association and NHS Employers (2011), A guide to consultant job planning.
• British Medical Association and NHS Employers (2012), A UK guide to job planning for specialty doctors and associate specialists.
• NHS Employers (2003), Terms and conditions of service for consultants.
• NHS Employers (2008), Terms and conditions for specialty doctors in England.
• Royal College of Psychiatrists (2012), Safe patients and high-quality services: a guide to job descriptions and job plans for consultant psychiatrists (CR174).

12 Appendices

12.1 Appendix A pre-job planning questionnaire

Refer to appendix A: pre-job planning questionnaire (staff access only).

12.2 Appendix B job plan template

Refer to appendix B: job plan template (staff access only).

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Document control

• Version: 1.
• Unique reference number: 1116.
• Approved by: clinical leadership executive.
• Date approved: 18 November 2025.
• Name of originator or author: medical directorate and education manager.
• Name of responsible individual: chief medical officer.
• Date issued: 24 February 2026.
• Review date: 28 February 2029.
• Target audience: consultants and specialty doctors, managers of medical staff, care group senior leadership teams, directorate management teams.

Page last reviewed: February 24, 2026
Next review due: February 24, 2027

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