Over the past 18 months, the Branch has been working with Safer Care Victoria, the Department of Health and three Victorian health services to investigate the issues that nurses and midwives have with rostering, and to develop education material and recommendations to address employees’ concerns in Victoria.
With current rostering practices and principles not meeting the needs of some of our contemporary workforce, the project’s aim was to create a set of guidelines to support more employee-centred, flexible rostering.
The project is now in its final stages, with the Victorian Rostering Toolkit now available from Safer Care Victoria along with a chart on employee-centred rostering principles.
The Victorian Rostering Toolkit is a resource for nursing and midwifery unit managers and roster managers outlining the four Fs of employee-centred rostering principles: foundations, flexibility, fairness, and fatigue management.
The toolkit provides a consistent approach to best-practice rostering that is designed to help health services. If the key principles are followed, we would expect units to see a decrease in absenteeism and casualisation among the workforce.
The principles are not set-and-forget, however: it remains integral for all rostering practices, policies and procedures to be continuously monitored, evaluated and improved.
The final report containing recommendations is almost complete and will be made available to all.
