Rotamap

Spring 2025 Forum

Friday 21st March 2025

Rotamap's Spring Forum took place on Friday 21st March 2025, at 1 Wimpole Street, the Headquarters of the Royal Society of Medicine in central London. This was the largest in-person event we have ever run with Consultants, Rota administrators, Service managers, Medical directors, and other healthcare professionals in attendance. The forum enabled valuable discussions and an opportunity for users to share experiences of using Rotamap's services to help rota management across the NHS.

The talks were framed within the idea of managing complexity and focused on the growing challenges organisations and departments are facing as they try to deliver services across a complex and increasingly challenging environment. As the sophistication of rotas increases and coordination at the organisational level becomes more important, the event explored how Rotamap's services can help make sense of the data, simplify rostering, and support better decision-making.

After an introduction by Fran and Nick, Joel and Liv gave a talk on the new improvements to the Shifts feature. They shared new views and how Shifts integrate with other parts of the platform. They explained how it's helping teams visualise staffing more clearly and coordinate rotas, especially with complex, varied schedules. They also showed how Shifts tie in with leave management, sending Bids, and the mobile app, making rotas more flexible and easier to manage.

Next up, Alison Pegg and Sophie Hodkinson from the Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust shared how their Trauma and Orthopaedics team implemented Medirota. Their talk provided a clear and practical walkthrough of their transition away from Excel-based planning to a more structured, template-driven approach. With Rotamap's support, the team was able to fully implement the new system two weeks ahead of schedule.

The benefits were significant: the time spent manually updating rotas dropped from two full days to an average of four hours per week, freeing up time for more strategic tasks. The department also reported a 73% reduction in on-the-day clinic cancellations, improved communication through in-app notifications, and better coordination between clinicians and administrative staff. These changes not only streamlined workflows, but also led to noticeable improvements in both staff morale and patient experience.

The final session before lunch came from Alex and Joel, who demonstrated the power of the Report Builder feature using anonymised real-world data. Drawing on several years of data from three NHS trusts, they explored links between shift patterns and staff wellbeing, focusing particularly on the impact of consecutive night shifts.

Their preliminary findings revealed a clear correlation: staff who had worked only night shifts in the previous week were 24% more likely to take sick leave than those who worked no nights. The data also showed significant differences across staff grades, with senior residents 126% more likely to take sick leave than consultants, and junior residents 349% more likely.

But beyond the figures, the session demonstrated how the Report Builder can help Trusts generate detailed, meaningful insights from their own data, identifying patterns across thousands of rota assignments and leave events. It was a compelling reminder that Rotamap's services are more than purely operational tools, but rather a powerful source of strategic insight. Tools like the Report Builder are enabling Trusts to dig deeper, flag emerging concerns, and model smarter, more sustainable rota planning decisions.

In the afternoon, Peter and Sam introduced Exception Reporting, a powerful new tool in CLWRota and Medirota that allows resident doctors to report on deviations in their work schedules. Integrating exception reporting into Rotamap's services facilitates direct reference to rotas, and makes centralised management and tracking of exception reports much easier.

Laura Hartley, Group Manager at University Hospitals Tees, then talked about the Trust's experience of moving staff rostering and leave to Rotamap to the point where they now have over 700 clinicians rostered with Rotamap's All Doctor Rostering (ADR). Laura discussed challenges faced, as well as advantages reaped, and she drew particular attention to the benefits of having an electronic, centralised overview of extra payments and leave. They can now easily identify that annual leave is taken proportionally to scheduled activity.

Jacob and Em then presented Delivery Reporting, which helps compare work expected and delivered by clinicians. They discussed how using Delivery Reporting can help with building clear metrics for expectations, allowing equitable and accountable distribution of work. Delivery Reporting allows users not only to evaluate work retrospectively, but also to see a running total for how much work a clinician is still expected to deliver against their job plan.

Finally, Fran and Nick returned to the stage to share some planned and upcoming features, including extending the scope of self-rostering, integrations with bank agencies, and a visual overhaul of Rotamap's mobile apps.

We really enjoyed seeing new and familiar faces. It was exciting to see users so engaged with the day's talks and coming out of them ready to set up meetings and take advantage of new features. As ever, it wasn't just a case of us sharing information with guests. We learned more about how users are working with data, and we have already held various meetings helping users to make the most of our services.

Agenda

1. Introduction: Managing Complexity
   

   Fran Mountjoy and Nick Edgeworth (Rotamap)

2. Shifts in focus: Using the Shifts feature to unlock greater system benefits
   

   Joel Moore and Liv Shearer (Rotamap)

3. Using Medirota in Trauma & Orthopaedics
   

   Alison Pegg and Sophie Hodkinson, Service Managers (The Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust)

4. Data: The impact of shift patterns on staff wellbeing
   

   Alex Bones and Joel Blakemore (Rotamap)

5. Exception reporting in Rotamap's services
   

   Peter Barwick and Sam Liddicoat (Rotamap)

6. All Doctor Rostering: Rotamap journey
   

   Laura Hartley, Group Manager (University Hospitals Tees)

7. Delivery reporting: Tracking planned and delivered work
   

   Em Robson and Jacob Kirk (Rotamap)

8. Wrapping up & looking forward
   

   Fran Mountjoy and Nick Edgeworth (Rotamap)

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