Job planning: a tool to support safe and effective care

Year published: 2019

Great patient care is dependent on much more than the quality and quantity of face to face time we spend with patients

Job planning provides an opportunity to ensure all the elements that contribute to high quality care in your role are captured.

It is applicable for the entire physiotherapy workforce.

What is a job plan?

A document that captures all the activities you undertake as part of your role and how much of your contracted hours you should be spending on them.

An opportunity for the profession

Job planning provides an opportunity to clearly define elements of physiotherapy practice that are not ordinarily captured in traditional workforce modelling.

This is particularly helpful when considering and planning for the time required in a role to support students and other learners in practice.

Meeting the four pillars of advanced and consultant level clinical practice

In the same way job planning can support those working at advanced clinical practitioner and consultant levels to be clear about the dedicated time needed in their role to contribute to teaching, research and leadership.

The job planning process should

  • take place with your manager.
  • enable you to clearly outline all the activities you undertake in your role and agree how your time should be allocated to each one.

Capturing the range of activities in your role

As part of the planning process you need to consider everything that you do or should do to deliver your service; perform well in your role and meet the requirements of your job description. These might include a combination of:

  • Face to face patient interventions
  • Non face to face patient interventions
  • Continued professional development activities
  • Teaching and training others including students
  • Audit and Research
  • Management and leadership activities

Reflecting local roles and services

The amount of time spent on each activity will depend on your particular role and your local service needs. There is no ‘one size fits all’ job plan.

For further information download our full guidance and recommendations for good job planning below, which includes links to the NHS Improvement resources.

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