Using your right to facilities time helps you as well as benefiting your colleagues, employer and patients.
Although you are legally entitled to paid time off to carry out your duties, ensuring you take full advantage of this right can be challenging. Occasionally, managers can be hostile and obstructive when you ask for time off. If you find yourself in this situation, please contact your senior negotiating officer (SNO) for support. More commonly, however, reps worry about the consequences of taking time off and end up working unpaid hours instead. Taking adequate facilities time is essential for the benefit of your employer, colleagues, patients, and you. It’s the only way you can effectively fulfil your role without burnout.
Common challenges for reps
Many reps avoid taking time off because of:
- Guilt over not treating patients amid high demand or staff shortages.
- Stress over neglecting paperwork or leaving patient care to others.
- Concerns over absences during organisational changes.
- Being overwhelmed by the numerous changes in the NHS.
It's important to overcome these challenges to perform your duties effectively. For example, if you’re worried about patient care, remember that your absence can lead to long-term benefits by improving workplace conditions and staff morale.
Benefits for colleagues
When you take facilities time, you bring back critical information and skills that can help your colleagues navigate changes and help you to represent them more effectively. For example, attending a regional training session can provide new strategies for managing workloads that you can share with your team.
Your training and involvement as a rep can benefit colleagues by:
- Keeping your skills and knowledge up to date so you can represent them better during grievances or disciplinary hearings.
- Allowing you to share valuable information about regional and national changes as well as the latest support from the CSP.
- Enabling you to communicate in advance and plan for any impact to your department during restructures.
Benefits for employers
By taking facilities time, you help to create a more efficient, safe and motivated workforce, which directly benefits your employer. If staff feel that they have a voice and some form of control over what is happening, they will generally have higher morale and motivation. A happier workforce will tend to have lower turnover, less sick leave and reduced recruitment costs. Research on the use of facilities time in the public sector backs this up.
Your role as a CSP rep benefits your employers by:
- Facilitating good communication between employers and members.
- Making sure that CSP members are fully consulted and involved in proposed changes – assisting your employer to meet their legal obligations.
- Helping members to put forward their ideas and views to improve performance and efficiency.
- Supporting individual members during restructuring, reducing the likelihood of time-consuming grievances.
- Assisting members to return to work after a period of sick leave.
- Access to training on the latest employment and safety issues – advising your employer on their obligations when the law changes.
- Identifying hazards – preventing potential accidents and injuries to workers that result in costs for employers.
Benefits for patients
Taking facilities time allows reps to improve the experience of healthcare staff, which directly impacts patient care quality. Research shows having engaged and satisfied staff leads to:
- Better patient outcomes and experiences.
- Lower mortality rates and hospital-acquired infections.
- Reduced absenteeism and stress-related sickness.
- Less staff turnover, greater hospital efficiency and cost savings.
Benefits for you
Taking facilities time ensures you can perform your duties without sacrifising your professional growth and personal wellbeing. Your role as a CSP rep also benefits you by:
- Enhancing your communication and negotiation skills, useful in clinical roles.
- Increasing your awareness of the bigger picture, and enabling you to network and share experiences with stewards from different employers.
- Providing opportunities for CPD and personal development.
- Improving your ability to advocate for physiotherapy services within your organisation.
For instance, the negotiation skills you develop as a rep can be directly applied to advocating for better resources or support in your clinical practice.
More benefits
For more on the benefits of facilities time, see: