Countess of Chester faced rising service pressures and a lack of visibility over how senior doctors’ time was being used. With 288 consultants and SAS doctors, inconsistent job planning meant it was difficult to match capacity with demand, recover backlogs, or plan services effectively. Leadership knew this wasn’t just about hitting compliance, it was about building a foundation for safer staffing and better patient care.

SARD Consult worked closely with the Trust to bring structure, consistency, and evidence to workforce planning. Together we:

• Introduced specialty-specific job plan templates to reduce variation.

• Delivered targeted training and one-to-one support to build engagement.

• Set up a Job Planning Consistency Panel to ensure fairness.

• Analysed rota and demand data across Anaesthetics and Intensive Care, highlighting surplus programmed activities (PAs) that could be redeployed.

• Provided managers with clear, real-time insight into how consultant time was being used.

This combination of culture change, structured data, and trusted tools gave the Trust confidence to use job planning as a strategic asset, not a tick-box exercise.

The impact was striking. Compliance rose from just 18.5% of consultants with approved job plans to over 97% fully signed off. Consistency panels reviewed the majority of plans, aligning the Trust with NHSE standards. Within Anaesthetics alone, analysis revealed more than 58 PAs a week in surplus capacity (equivalent to around £450k per year) giving leaders a clear path to rightsize resources ethically and safely. Most importantly, services now have a reliable foundation to plan for recovery, reduce backlogs, and strengthen patient care.