Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when he plans to introduce self/preferential e-rostering for doctors.

We want to move the National Health Service toward a culture where flexible working opportunities are much more widely available, and where employees feel supported to discuss their working patterns and options with their line manager.

Our 10 Year Workforce Plan will set out how we will ensure the NHS has the right people, in the right places, with the right skills to care for patients when they need it. We will do this by ensuring staff are better treated, have better training and more fulfilling roles.

The Plan will also set out how we will increase opportunities for flexible working, including through the introduction of a new set of Staff Standards which will mandate additional action employers need to take in key areas, such as flexible working.

Additionally, NHS England, in partnership with NHS Employers, Timewise, and the NHS Staff Council, developed the Think Flex First guidance to support individuals and organisations to consider flexible working options, and to put in place structures and processes to deliver future-fit workplaces. It highlights e‑Rostering as a key enabler of flexible working for clinicians, including doctors, delivering 24/7 services, ensuring flexibility is delivered consistently, fairly, and at scale within safe clinical staffing models.