Locum work for resident doctors

Read about the terms and conditions around undertaking hours of paid work as a locum.

Location: England
Audience: Resident doctors
Updated: Wednesday 18 September 2024
Working hours article illustration

Locum fidelity clause

If you are working under the 2016 TCS and you would like to undertake hours of paid work as a locum, additional to the hours set out in your work schedule, you must initially offer these additional hours to the NHS via an NHS staff bank of your choosing.

These are hours of your choosing and you are never obliged to undertake locum work in your spare time. It is up to you to self-define your spare capacity and offer your availability at the times that suit you. If your employer informs you that they do not have a need for the spare capacity you have offered, you may then seek to arrange a locum shift through an agency.

You do not need to offer space capacity to your employer when the additional work you intend on undertaking in the specified time is voluntary or communal in nature, such as; event and expedition medicine, work for medical charities, non-profits, humanitarian and similar organisations, or sports and exercise,

You should inform your employer of your intention to undertake additional hours of locum work. Your employer should agree with the JLNC a local process for you to inform an NHS staff bank of your intention to carry out this work. In the absence of an agreed policy, schedule 3, paragraph 52 is still applicable to resident doctors who are working under these TCS.

 

Working hours

As a resident doctor you can carry out additional activity over and above the standard commitment set out in your work schedule up to a maximum average of 48 hours per week (or up to 56 hours per week if you have opted out of the WTR).

However, you are required to ensure that any additional hours of work do not breach any of the safety and rest requirements set out in Schedule 3 of the resident doctor TCS.

 

Pay

Your rate of pay will be set by the NHS staff bank.

The 2018 contract review set out that staff banks have authority to set rates of locum work. As such national locum rates outlined in pay circular and previously referenced in the 2016 TCS have been removed.

 

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Your contract of employment

 

Find out how to ensure the employment contract you are given is acceptable.

 

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Junior doctors have changed their title to ‘resident doctors’

As of 18 September, all references to junior doctors in BMA communications have been changed to ‘resident doctors’.

 

Making up nearly 25% of all doctors in the UK, this cohort will now have a title that better reflects their huge range of skills and responsibilities. 

 

Find out more about why junior doctors are now known as 'resident doctors'.

 

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