Job Planning

Background

The new consultants’ contract was introduced to improve patient care and to ensure that trusts’ and consultants’ objectives are more closely aligned. However, although the majority of consultants now have job plans, few trusts have experienced the full benefits of the job planning process.

The problems associated with job planning include:

failure by trusts to set strategic goals for job planning;
poorly defined job planning process and responsibilities;
limited support and training for those people managing the process;
difficult and time-consuming tracking and sign-off procedures for multiple job plans;
lack of transparency and fairness in the way PAs are calculated;
lack of consistency in job plan format and language used;
inability to consolidate job plans for reporting purposes.

The advantages of web-based job planning

The most common method for writing job-plans is with paper or Excel templates. This approach is viewed as relatively inexpensive. However, in reality paper job planning can become an unnecessarily time-consuming paper-chase that is inconsistently applied across consultants. It can also result in a poorly controlled process, often driven by the needs of the consultants and not the trust. Web-based job planning overcomes all these difficulties and provides many other benefits.

What is MyJobPlan?

MyJobPlan is a web-based job planning solution that is used by over 50 trusts in England. MyJobPlan facilitates job planning for consultants, and now for specialty doctors and associate specialists with its new SAS doctor licence. The system benefits trusts by providing:

Standardised job plans

MyJobPlan ensures the format of a job plan, and the way PAs are calculated, is consistent across the entire trust. The system is sufficiently flexible to allow job plans to be correctly calculated for consultants and SAS doctors. MyJobPlan caters for complex job plans spanning long periods of time and supports annualisation.

Flexible and transparent job planning

MyJobPlan provides a trust with a flexible and transparent job planning process that includes two levels of electronic sign-off. The system encourages a ‘hub and spoke’ model for managing job planning, whereby the project manager oversees the process from the centre, and clinical managers drive the job planning process in their departments.

Useful reports

MyJobPlan allows a trust to track the progress of job planning and scrutinise activity/PA data at any level in the organisation in real time. This information ensures problems are highlighted immediately and can be managed in the most appropriate manner by the trust. An accurate benchmark reporting function will be made available in the next 6 months.

Expert support and training

With MyJobPlan, managers have instant access to expert training and a dedicated support team as standard. If you have any questions about the system, or need help understanding policies or rules, you can be certain that our friendly experts are always on hand to assist you.

Dedicated Account Manager

As a MyJobPlan client, you will be assigned a Zircadian Account Manager who will guide you through the set-up and roll-out of the system, help you through your first round of job planning, and ensure you get the most from the system.

Data access, data security, and data back-up

Each user of MyJobPlan is issued with a secure, online account through which they access job plan data from any computer linked to the internet. Unauthorised access to sensitive data, such as other consultants’ job plans, is prevented through a combination of user rights and 256-bit data encryption. Frequent back-ups occur daily.

Related modules

MyJobPlan will shortly be able to link to a consultant appraisal module, a rostering module, and a leave module. These are currently being developed by Zircadian, with availability planned within the next six months.

Software and Services