Self-Rostering

HealthRota’s Self-Rostering system is a flexible approach to NHS workforce scheduling that enables healthcare professionals to take an active role in coordinating their work patterns.

Staff members are given the autonomy to choose their shifts in a way that aligns with their own circumstances, preferences and wellbeing, while still ensuring clinical service needs are safely met.

HealthRota supports a structured approach to self-rostering enabling both flexibility for staff and operational oversight for managers.

How self-rostering works in HealthRota

Set the Framework: The rota coordinator begins by setting how many of each shift you are required to work, any staffing rules that must be followed and a deadline for when preferences need to be submitted
Submit Preferences: Team members log into the HealthRota app to indicate which shifts they would prefer to work and to request leave.
Manager Review: Rota coordinators have the option to make necessary adjustments to the selected shifts to ensure safe staffing levels, fair working patterns and adherence to team members contracts
Collaborate and Adjust: Once published, staff can swap shifts (with manager approval) directly through the platform.
Track PAs Worked: The system tracks how many Programmed Activities (PAs) you’ve worked. This helps both staff and managers make sure contractual hours (like DCC or SPA time) are being met

With HealthRota, self-rostering is easy, efficient and safe – enabling you to:

Improve Work-Life Balance: Choose shifts that align with your personal commitments.
Enhance Team Collaboration: Easily coordinate with colleagues to ensure fair and equitable scheduling.
Maintain Compliance: Automate rules for safe staffing levels and working hours.

When self-rostering has been introduced the results speak for themselves time and time again: improved staff satisfaction, reduced costs on locums and admin, and improved recruitment and retention. Check out these HealthRota specific case studies for more details.

Brighton self-rostering case study
Hillingdon ‘Could Self-Rostering be the solution to preventing burnout?’

The BMA, NHS Employers and NHS England have all endorsed self-rostering as the “aspirational best practice for outstanding employers.” This endorsement reflects the broader shift within the NHS to self-rostering as a more inclusive and responsive employment practice.

Several leading healthcare bodies have acknowledged the importance of self-rostering in recent publications and policy discussions including:

The Royal College of Emergency Medicine, which has explored the benefit in recruiting and retaining workforce.
The Royal College of Anaesthetics which highlighted the advantages to the rota members and rota administrators alike
The Royal College of Nursin g has been a longstanding advocate for self-rostering to achieve improved work life balance
The Royal College of Physician s which has discussed flexible working as key to sustainable medical careers

The benefits of self-rostering with HealthRota

Recommended by BMA & NHS Employers: Self-rostering is recommended by the BMA and NHS Employers as the “aspirational best practice for outstanding employers”
Fair and Transparent: Ensure equality across your team with automated conflict resolution and visibility into the rostering process.
Improved Retention: Ensure equality across your team with automated conflict resolution and visibility into the rostering process.
Enhanced Productivity: Empowered staff are more motivated and engaged.
Seamless Integration: HealthRota integrates with your existing systems to streamline payroll, leave management, and compliance.
Reduced Absenteeism: Aligning work schedules with personal preferences leads to fewer conflicts and less burnout.
Optimised Staffing: Meet patient demand effectively without overloading your team
Cuts Admin Costs: Reduce administrative overhead with automated scheduling and fewer rota disputes
User-Friendly Interface: Our clean, intuitive design makes rostering simple for everyone
Safe Rostering: Healthrota crosschecks all shifts inputted against the contract compliance rules to ensure safe working hours and staffing levels
PA Calculation: Track the number of PAs worked to check whether contractual obligations are being completed

Feedback on Self-Rostering

It saved us. It was amazing. If you can imagine a control room with your Chiefs planning your team, that is what we did. We were able to stop everyone from moving around and still ensured our workforce got regular breaks, their annual leave when requested and that we still had sufficient capacity to meet the demands of the Covid pandemic despite the number of staff not able to work. We built resilience into the team and so during wave one, not one doctor felt that they were being overworked. It was unbelievable.

Amy Brown

Medical Workforce Systems Manager

Most other competitors that report to allow self-rostering have got the process a little wrong. I email everyone on the rota and they login and people self-allocate their shifts, but with other systems I would have to ‘ok’ each one of those requests and when you’re looking at almost 2000 shifts every two months, that’s just not possible. The fact that HealthRota almost “crowdsources” this part of it, makes things really quite simple.

Tom Bircher

EM Consultant

It’s amazing the difference self-rostering can do to both staff morale and burnout. With the survey we did, registrars are happier. Happier staff mean better care for patients.

We’ve noticed a massive decrease in sickness on the registrar rota, because people are just more flexible. There’s more flexibility on the rota, which is great. We’ve also had a big impact on cost.

Sabrina Waheed

Junior Doctor

Much more flexibility for trainees. Easy to book annual leave can schedule work like around social life easily (and) better for morale overall. Less long runs of days or night if you prefer…

I think it’s great – especially because you can choose the weekends you’d rather not work because of other commitments.

It’s absolutely fantastic. This rota gives us ownership, feel valued as a team member, inclusive and allows our voice to be heard. Creates a better work life balance.

HealthRota has been invaluable in giving me flexibility for my personal and professional leave. It is very easy to use and gives a clear overview of staffing. As teaching fellow I have needed the flexibility to optimise my work opportunities, I could easily swap my shifts and leave to ensure I didn’t miss out and could contribute. I have never had such a flawless rota before… I cannot praise this rota enough and would be sorely disappointed if it was withdrawn.

This is such a great system – I have received 100% of the annual leave and unavailable days I have requested in both my clinical fellow job and my current training job. It makes such a difference not feeling that sense of dread when trying to get annual leave granted for important life events and marking unavailable days where you actually want your zero days is so much better than having them randomly allocated to days that are not useful. It is an excellent system and a massive selling point.