- Agenda for Change staff in England: nurses, midwives, allied health professionals, healthcare assistants, and admin, estates and support staff. It reads the working time rules in Section 27 of the NHS Terms and Conditions of Service Handbook, Amendment 62. Doctors in training are excluded from Section 27 (27.3) and have their own contract's rules.
- 48 on average for each seven days, worked out over the 17 weeks immediately before each day (27.9 and 27.10). You can choose to work more by agreeing in writing, but it is your choice and no pressure should be put on you to agree; you can end the agreement with written notice (27.12). Meal breaks are not working time unless you are required to work through them (27.11), so an unpaid break comes off the hours.
- At least 11 hours in each 24 (27.17). It can be less only in exceptional circumstances, or when you are changing shifts, and either way equivalent compensatory rest should be arranged (27.17 and 27.18). Any regular change to the 11 hours must be agreed with the locally recognised unions (27.17), so a late shift followed by an early one, week after week, is not something a rota can simply do.
- An uninterrupted 35 hours, including the 11 hours of daily rest, in each seven days. Where that is not possible, the equivalent over 14 days: one period of 70 hours, or two of 35 (27.19).
- On a working day longer than six hours, a break of at least 20 minutes, taken during the shift rather than at its start or end, and away from your work station. If in exceptional circumstances it cannot be taken, the time is claimed as equivalent compensatory rest (27.15). A longer local lunch break meets this.
- If you normally work at least three hours of your shift at night (27.20). Night time includes midnight to 5am and, without a local agreement, runs from 23:00 to 06:00. As a night worker your normal hours should average no more than eight in every 24 over 17 weeks (27.20), and you are entitled to a free, confidential health assessment in paid time (27.24).
- You paint one cycle of your pattern and say how many weeks it lasts. The check lays that pattern out over three cycles, or 17 weeks if that is longer, so the 48-hour average runs over its full 17 weeks and every day of the cycle is checked with the days either side of it. A problem that recurs is counted once for each time it happens in the cycle, and unpaid breaks are taken off every shift.
- Most of Section 27 says what should normally happen, and where it cannot, what you are owed instead: usually equivalent compensatory rest. Your employer must keep records that show these limits are met and that compensatory rest is given, and those records are available to the locally recognised unions (27.7). You must suffer no detriment for using any of these entitlements (27.6).
- Yes. Where your rota is outside a limit, the button under your results opens an email to your manager or rostering team, written from what the check found. Where the Personalised Payslip Check finds your pay short, the same page writes one to payroll. You can change any of it before you send it, and it is saved with your rota.
- The Rota Compliance Check and the Automatic Correction Email are part of NHS Staff Pay Complete: £3 a month, or £30 a year. You can cancel any time from Purchases on your account page, and you keep it until the end of the month or year you paid for. The pay calculator stays free.
- Yes. Your rotas, and any email written from them, are saved to your account, so they are there on any device you sign in on. Delete a rota and it is gone; delete your account and every rota goes with it.
- No. The check reads your rota against the working time limits in Section 27 as NHS Employers publishes them. Some of those limits can be set or varied by local agreement, such as when night time starts and ends (27.20), and the check cannot see those agreements.
- Under your results, tap 'Spot a mistake? Let us know'. Tell us what the check says, what it should say, and ideally the paragraph of the handbook.
