Job planning and external duties
February 2004
The CCSC has been receiving reports from around England that trusts are reluctant to recognise external duties in consultant job plans. External duties, for example work for royal colleges or the General Medical Council and acting as an assessor for the NCAA, are carried out by consultants for the benefit of the wider NHS and as such are extremely valuable.
The CCSC raised its concerns a number of times with the Department of Health last year. The Department agreed that consultants should not unreasonably be prevented from undertaking these activities as part of their contracted PAs and, in January 2004, the following statement was released as part of a bulletin on the consultant contract by the Modernisation Agency’s Consultant Contract Implementation Team:
“The new contract is designed to recognise a range of possible circumstances where it is in the wider interests of the NHS for consultants to be allowed time – as part of their NHS programmed activities – for work done outside the employing organisation. This includes reasonable quantities of work for the Royal Colleges in the interests of the NHS and reasonable quantities of work for a Government Department – other examples are listed in definitions of ‘external duties’ in the Terms and Conditions of Service. The inclusion of such activities in job plans is a matter for agreement between employers and consultants. It remains, however, the policy of the Department of Health to encourage NHS organisations to release consultants for work that is necessary for the broader benefit of the NHS.”
This statement should be considered in conjunction with previous Department of Health advice which is taken from a letter from the Director of HR for the NHS Executive in 1995 (EL(95)93) regarding higher awards:
“……..I would like to encourage employers, as part of their obligations as part of the NHS, to release consultants for a range of duties such as advising the Department of Health, participating in college duties or examining. These are all examples of work necessary for the broader benefit of the NHS but which involve consultants being away from their employment base.”