Rotamap

Case Study: Using Rotamap's reporting functionality to optimise theatre productivity and efficiency

Francesca Smith, Rotamap - June 2026

Introduction

At the March 2026 Rotamap All Doctor Rostering event, Mark Currie, Director of Data and Analytics at Oxford University Hospitals (OUH), presented on how the Trust is using data from Rotamap’s reporting tools to improve operating theatre productivity by identifying avoidable structural issues and inefficiencies and support long term operational and financial sustainability.

By combining theatre utilisation metrics and cancellation reporting used in the Trust’s 6-4-2 planning process with consultant leave data, the Trust has successfully generated actionable operational insights to create evidence based plans for improvement. In doing so, they have moved beyond reactive management and more towards evidence-based workforce planning which supports both operating theatre productivity and delivery and financial performance. The Trust intends to use this information to realise organisational benefits, such as reducing overall deficit by decreasing the need for paying for additional sessions or outsourcing.

Theatre utilisation and productivity challenges

As seen across the NHS, the Trust seeks to operate within the 6-4-2 theatre scheduling framework, seeking to improve efficiency, reduce on-the-day cancellations, and increase capacity. A major challenge within this is theatre cancellations and having transparency in comparing available staff with theatre locations.

Whilst some theatre cancellations are unavoidable, some could be prevented through better visibility of cancellations and staffing issues, resulting in improved planning and coordination. Short notice and same day cancellations have significant negative impacts on staff and patient experience and also represent operational and financial loss due to the cost associated with running theatres. Any unused theatre time translates into lost productivity and missed opportunities to deliver care as well as potential lost revenue.

In order to accurately identify, quantify and address avoidable inefficiencies and make credible, data-driven improvement plans to meet intended outcomes in delivery and financial savings, the Trust used Rotamap’s reporting capabilities to create a more comprehensive understanding of theatre activity and workforce availability.

Improving visibility through report configuration

The Trust has worked with Rotamap to configure reports on three key areas whose datasets are triangulated to allow teams to create a comprehensive understanding of theatre activity and workforce availability:

• Theatre cancellation reporting
• Anaesthetist and surgeon availability
• Consultant leave reporting

Theatre cancellation and clinician availability reports

The Trust uses Rotamap's online rostering tools CLWRota and Medirota to plan, record and report on their service delivery; the information from the individual service specialty rotas can be viewed together on the Overview which provides a composite view of activity in real time.

To ensure accuracy, it is mandated for Rotamap's rostering tools to be used for rostering all theatre activity, and services are required to move their rotas into a draft state at least six weeks in advance, thus showing where sessions were genuinely uncovered. This rostering data forms the Trust's weekly 6-4-2 reports, broken down by divisional group, which at weekly intervals six weeks in advance show:

• Theatre name, session and date
• If there is no surgeon or anaesthetist assigned
• If the list is cancelled
• Reason for cancellation

The report is supplemented by the Cancellations report available in CLWRota which, for any given date range, additionally shows:

• Title
• Specialty
• Cancellation reason
• Cancellation notes
• Cancellation date and time

Together, these reports have been used to generate a PowerBI dashboard report listing total session cancellations by specialty and reason.

Figure 1. PowerBI dashboard report listing total session cancellations by specialty and reason.

Figure 2. PowerBI dashboard report showing variation in number of weeks between planned session start and session cancelled.

To support improvements in theatre productivity and efficiency, the Trust considers the data in the context of NHSE’s Model Hospital Capped and Uncapped Theatre Utilisation metrics where accurate reporting of theatre utilisation is vital in understanding theatre efficiency and identifying opportunities for improvement.

Integrated reporting between Rotamap’s reports and the Trust’s Electronic Patient Record (EPR) evidences accurate start and end times to provide a clearer understanding of genuine late starts, early finishes and unused capacity. Understanding these factors alongside cancellation reporting allows the trust to quantify opportunities for additional productivity by identifying sessions which could be re-let to other specialties and which have capacity for extra cases.

Consultant leave reporting to reduce avoidable disruption

Using Rotamap’s Report Builder in Central Reporting, the Trust has developed a custom leave report to generate a data feed for a PowerBI dashboard. The report data is drawn from Consultant leave bookings on the Trust’s CLWRota and Medirota sites to provide a clear visualisation of leave patterns throughout the year, including the notice period for leave. Extracts for de-identified services are shown below using the report for leave taken or requested as at 15th May, 2026.

Figure 3. PowerBI dashboard report showing leave that is booked/taken by month and service as a percentage of annual allowance.

Figure 4. PowerBI dashboard report showing median weeks between leave booking and leave period start date.

Findings from the report enable early identification of abnormal peaks in leave bookings through visible bunching trends (e.g., heavy leave in late year/term-time peaks). Early visibility helps reduce unanticipated concentrations of leave at certain points through the year which could otherwise lead to reduced clinical activity, higher spend on locum cover and risk missing delivery targets.

Although reported at a Trustwide level, the dashboard can be accessed by service managers to drive improvements and corrective action at a service and department level, as it provides evidence to support targeted conversations and fair distribution of leave. Cross-departmental visibility additionally has aided cross-team coordination between multidisciplinary groups including surgical and anaesthetic teams. Ensuring leave planning aligns with operational productivity goals, supporting proactive workforce management by helping to minimise avoidable theatre cancellations and improve early identification of theatre availability. For example, when the Trust is able to identify when surgeons are unavailable due to leave, opportunities for re-letting theatres to other specialties as part of 6-4-2 planning become clearer.

Conclusion and outcomes and the value of integrated reporting

A central theme of the Trust’s approach is how using Rotamap’s reporting features has allowed for the triangulation of data from multiple operational sources to uncover deeper insights. Rather than treating cancellation, utilisation and leave as separate issues, the Trust has integrated their reports to understand how the categories interact and influence one another.

Insights from their reports have allowed the Trust to move beyond reactive management and towards evidence based workforce planning which supports both operating theatre productivity and delivery and financial performance. When opportunities are identified for better utilisation to meet operational demands, other benefits have been realised such as reducing the need for paying for additional sessions or outsourcing.