Rest Facilities and Taxis

Process for rest facilities / taxi provision for trainees who feel unsafe to travel home

following a night */ late (finishing after 2200) or long shift (10+hrs)

The trust is contractually obligated to provide appropriate rest facilities to trainees who feel unsafe

to travel home following a night / late or long shift. The Terms and Conditions of Service for NHS

Doctors and Dentists in Training (England) 2016 (Schedule 13, Section 9) states:

Where a doctor advises the employer that the doctor feels unable to travel home following a night,

long, or late shift due to tiredness, the employer shall where possible provide an appropriate rest

facility where the doctor can sleep, without charge. The hours when the doctor is resting in the

hospital under these circumstances will not count as work or working time. Where the provision of an

appropriate rest facility is not possible, the employer must cover the cost of alternative arrangements

for the doctor's safe travel home. Where necessary, the employer must also cover reasonable

expenses as determined through locally agreed policies for the doctor’s return journey to work, either

to begin the next shift or, where the doctor has left their personal vehicle at work, to collect the

vehicle.

Appropriate rest facilities need to meet the standards set out in the BMA Fatigue and Facilities

charter to which the trust is signed up. (Please see attached BMA Fatigue and Facilities charter)

 If a trainee feels unsafe to make their way home following a night, late (finishing after 2200)

or long shift (10hrs+) the trust must help secure access to the available accommodation (see

below).

 If the accommodation is unavailable then a taxi will be funded by the trust for the trainee to

travel home.

 The trainee must inform their clinical lead / operational manager that they feel unsafe to

travel home in order to initiate this process – see attached approval form

 The trainee will be responsible for booking the taxi and retaining their receipt for the

journey.

 The trainee will then be able to request expense reimbursement for this taxi journey using

the easy expenses system which their manager will be able to approve for payment – The

authorised approval form will need to be included for any reimbursement claim.

The contract states that the trust will also fund reasonable expenses for the trainee to return to

work either for their next shift or if they have left their vehicle on-site to return to pick up their

vehicle. If travel by public transport will add more than 60 minutes to the trainee’s usual

journey then a taxi will be funded for them to return to work to pick up their vehicle – the same

process for reimbursement as it outlined above will apply.

Available rest facilities:

On the Chelsea site:

 Rooms are available in the doctors mess and alternatively in Doughty House.

 From 0800 – 1700 please contact Diana on x 56898 and a room will be provided

 Outside of the hours listed above bookings are to be made via the site manager and keys to

be collected from reception.

On the West Middlesex site:

 4 rooms available adjacent to the doctors’ mess – 2nd Floor East Wing

 To book these rooms (through the Site Manager (CSM) / Senior Manager on-call (SMOC)) –

24hrs / 365 days a year:

 First contact made with CSM via bleep

 This secures ‘booked access’ to room

 CSM will log name of doctor and which room is allocated and, if necessary, will provide

directions

 Any escalation (double bookings, failure/lateness of cleaning, etc) to be reported to CSM

 Rooms are access via physical keys – master keys are kept by ISS and security. Custom and

practice is that they are left unlocked for the next user and security is supported by swipe

access to the mess.

*begins no earlier than 20.00 and no later than 23.59, and is at least 8 hours in duration