Self-Roster.co.uk is a versatile rota planning and delivery service originally for shift workers in the UK National Health Service and UK private and independent hospitals. It is also suitable for others who have similar needs such as general medical, dental and veterinary practices, hotels, bars, restaurants, etc. Professionals have influenced, tested and approved every stage of development.

Self-Roster.co.uk is ready to use; you don't install it on your PC; you don't worry about which version you have; you don't upgrade; you don't backup your data, etc. - We do all of that. We have made sure it is easy to use, versatile and effective. All you have to do is use it! We can even do the setup and administration for you, so all you have to do is the straight forward planning of each rota.

Users of this system report time savings of up to 20 hours per month in a department of 30 workers. The ward or department telephone is quieter because staff can make requests and view the latest rotas on the Internet.

Planning of rotas is via the Internet so it can be done in the workplace, at home or while travelling in any part of the world. If several people are involved in planning they share the same information securely without effort.

Staff can view their rotas from home, or while on holiday anywhere in the world, to check when they are next due at work, or to make requests. The latest changes and updates are immediately visible. Friends and relatives of staff can be given controled access to the system, so they can avoid interrupting the sleep that follows night shifts.

Staff with a mobile phone, that has Internet access, can view their latest rota "on the move" - very useful when making appointments, holiday or social arrangements, delivery arrangements, etc.

Usually, a rota covers between seven days and one month. For each member of staff, a row of symbols indicates which shifts to work for each of those days. The total number of hours planned, over the whole period, is calculated and displayed on the right. The numbers of staff providing cover for each shift are counted for each day and displayed at the bottom.

In general it is best suited to self-contained departments of up to about 40 staff, but it can handle many more.

A basic rota is used to record staff details, target hours and shift patterns that generally remain fixed from one period to the next.

Rotas for specific periods of time are created by copying the basic rota and giving it a start date. This new specific rota is then edited for variations in staff for the period it covers. Then, it is edited for variations in the shifts that they work for that period.

The rota uses symbols to indicate shifts and other activities for each person. Some of these symbols, particularly the shifts, correspond to a number of hours worked. These hours are added up for each member of staff and appear as a total for the whole period. The totals are compared with target hours and the difference displayed. Any adjustment hours that you want to contribute to the total can also be included.

The rota uses symbols to indicate which shift each person is working on each day. Not all symbols are shifts, some indicate activities such as training or holiday etc. Staff covering each shift, are graded and counted each day, so you can see and control your skill mix. Cover reports list the graded staff on duty to cover each shift.

The symbols used in the rota can be customised, so you can use familiar ones. Details include a description, the number of hours they correspond to, which ones count as cover and how the staff are graded for skill mixing. Symbols can consist of multiple characters and digits, etc.

Staff details include position in the rota, name, grade, supernumerary or not, the shifts, other and target hours for the period, etc. Supernumerary members of staff are those who's shifts are not counted to provide cover.

Because nurses have complex, ever changing personal circumstances and expect flexible working, this system does not attempt to create schedules automatically. Telling a system how to propose schedules is complex and time-consuming, tending to offset the advantages.

Self-rostering is growing in popularity in the NHS, as a sensible alternative to automatic scheduling. The Department of Health recommend, explain and encourage self-rostering in their publication "Working Lives: Programmes for Change: Team Based Self-Rostering".

With self-rostering, you can let individual members of staff propose their own shifts. For each rota, this is done by letting staff edit their own shifts over a period of time before the rota is finalised. After this self-rostering period the planner then acts as referee editing the rota to remove anomalies, before releasing it in draft or as approved.

Access to the system is controlled by user ID and password. All members of a user group can see only the rotas belonging to the group. Guests can only view rotas. Staff can also propose shifts and see contact details of other users. Planners can also create, edit and delete rotas. The group administrator can also control user access, print cards to give users their user id (email) and password for access to the system, and edit the rota symbol definitions. If you prefer we can do some or all of the administration for you.

Self-Roster.co.uk was developed with Stoke Mandeville Intensive Care Unit, under the name of Duty Rota, for use on a stand alone PC. They worked with us to improve it and have now used it for over 10 years. It has recently been redesigned using the latest Internet technology under the name of Self-Roster.co.uk.

In accordance with UK Government recommendations it is built on open source software and complies with open standards from the World Wide Web Consortium (www.w3c.org).

We use open source software from the Apache Software Foundation (www.apache.org), which makes more than 62% of all web servers (www.netcraft.com/survey). Apache Tomcat provides a Java servlet container and Apache Cocoon the XML publishing framework for all components, both open source and those proprietary to us. Self-Roster is hosted and developed on the RedHat distribution of the Linux operating system, used for more than 35% of all web servers (www.netcraft.com/survery).

To get you started and support your use of the system we provide:

Starting cost is 10 pence per rostered person per day paid 3 months in advance. You pay for every 5 staff, the remainder are free. For 6 months advance payment we give 20% discount and for 12 months advance payment we give 45% discount. Submit your current rota using this Assessment Form for free assessment, set-up and quotation.