Classification: Official
Publication reference: PRN00526

To:

• ICBs:
  • chief executives
  • chief operating officers
  • chairs
  • chief people officers/HR directors
• Trusts:
  • chief executives
  • chief operating officers
  • chief people officers/HR directors
• CSU managing directors

CC:

• Regional:
  • directors
  • directors of nursing
  • heads of EPRR

Dear Colleagues,

Industrial action – junior doctors 14-17 June 2023: Approach, pre-action assurance, rescheduled activity, and workforce situation report (SitRep) data collections

This letter outlines the approach to pre-action assurance and capturing workforce and activity impacts of industrial action as announced by junior doctors [British Medical Association (BMA), British Dental Association (BDA) and Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association (HCSA)] from 06:59 on the 14 June to 06:59 on the 17 June.

The priority for the NHS is to mitigate risk to patient safety and we wish to be clear that we trust system leaders to make decisions to ensure we maintain a safe urgent and emergency care pathway – and that critical care, maternity, neonatal care, and trauma sites are resilient.

Organisations are making every possible effort to continue elective care for patients. We are again asking trusts to avoid block rescheduling of elective cases and we appreciate the lead in time will vary by provider.

It is important that, where appropriate, rescheduling of clinically urgent, cancer care (particularly for patients who have already been waiting over 62 days, or who are likely to pass day 62 if their appointment needs to be rescheduled), and long waiters are the final cohorts to be rescheduled.

Rescheduling of appointments should only happen when absolutely necessary and be undertaken in consultation with your integrated care board (ICB) and your regional performance director.

Pre-action assurance – ICB readiness self-assessment

Ahead of industrial action, NHS England is requesting ICBs to report confidence in their service provision in their area, using a modified version of the previously issued Excel template.

In line with the NHS operating model, ICBs’ responsibilities as Category 1 responders and system leaders, and in light of feedback, for this round of industrial action we are asking for assurance returns to be completed by ICBs only, informed by dialogue with trusts.

Our expectation is that the returns are completed by ICB EPRR leads, working closely with UEC leads and medical directors.

The ICB readiness self-assessment should be informed by trust-level planning and ICB-level assurance work with individual trusts and networks.

We use the information you provide to identify areas for escalation or further guidance, to guide our conversations with trade unions and the Government and to focus our support for systems. The template is enclosed with this letter.

Pre-action assurance – timings and deadlines

The deadline for the first return to the NOC is 12:00 on Thursday 8 June; regional teams will be in contact to agree local submission timescales.

A second return will be requested to highlight any changes to the previous submission given we anticipate a rapidly evolving picture in terms of staffing cover and risk. The deadline for resubmission of the template to the NOC will be 12:00 on Monday 12 June; regional teams will again be in contact to agree local submission timescales ahead of this.

ICBs are asked to complete the template on the basis that no derogations are agreed with the BMA to exempt services (beyond the stated commitments to recall staff in the event of mass casualty incidents) and to complete the template based on realistic local planning assumptions for the level of clinical cross-cover from consultants (senior doctors) and other clinicians.

Regional operations centres are asked to liaise with ICBs to ensure a comprehensive and accurate picture of local preparations and to identify service and geographical areas of concern. Where ICBs indicate there are trusts or services of concern and the return does not provide detailed information, NHS England regional or national teams will be in touch for further detail. Once regions have collated and reviewed ICB returns, regional EPRR teams are asked to complete a regional overview, and to send both this regional overview and the collated ICB returns for their region to the NOC.

Workforce and rescheduled activity situation report (SitRep) data collections

NHS England will conduct two SitRep data collections via the Strategic Data Collection Service (SDCS). Data from the collections prior to the industrial action will be used to understand the anticipated position of each Trust, inform local conversations, and help NHS England target regional support and follow-up – it will not be published.

Highlights of the data collected on 19 June will confirm the summary position following the period of industrial action and be published on NHS England’s website in the usual way.

1. Industrial Action workforce SitRep. This will collect numbers of staff taking part in the industrial action, and total numbers of staff due to be at work. This data will be collected once on Monday 19 June. The collection will be open for all affected ICBs and trusts. All organisations are requested to submit data, even if it is a nil return.
2. Industrial Action rescheduled activity SitRep. This will collect information on activity that has been rescheduled because of the industrial action. The collection will be open for all acute, community and mental health trusts. All organisations are requested to submit data, even if it is a nil return.

Workforce and rescheduled activity SitRep – dates and timing

Data collections on rescheduled activity will run on three occasions – on Friday 9 and Tuesday 13 June (to provide an initial internal estimates and aid in planning), and Monday 19 June (to provide final figures for the impact of the industrial action, which will be published). The workforce collection will run once on Monday 19 June.

Submissions will be made through the SDCS platform. On any day that the collection is running we will open the collection at 09:00 and the deadline for submission will be 13:00 that day. The template will be available to download from SDCS from 09:00 on the first day the collection is running.

A schedule highlighting which data will be collected on each of the upcoming dates are included at Annex A.

Rescheduled activity SitRep – notes

The collection will request the figures of rescheduled activity for the nine-day period of 12 June to 20 June inclusive.

Re-submissions will only be required for the rescheduled collections on Tuesday 13 and Monday 19 June if the data has changed from the previous submission on Friday 9 June. Any new submission will overwrite the previous submission (eg if the first submission reported 100 rescheduled appointments, and then a further 2 were found to have been rescheduled after the original submission, then the revised submission would need to show 102 rescheduled appointments).

Guidance and support

More detailed guidance notes will be shared with registered submitters ahead of the first collection. If you have any questions, please contact your regional team.

Many thanks for your continued cooperation and support in providing this information and ensuring a high return rate.

Yours sincerely,

Mike Prentice, National Director for Emergency Planning and Incident Response, NHS England

Annex A: Schedule of data collections and assurance returns

Annex B: Workforce SitRep

Please review PDF version of this letter for Workforce SitRep table.