We welcome the news that UKRDC (the UK resident doctors committee) has secured an agreement on ER (exception reporting) reform, which will improve the working lives of academic trainees in England employed under the 2016 contract. 

The agreed reforms will make exception reporting more accessible to resident doctors, move responsibility for handling working hours exceptions away from clinical supervisors, and bring regulatory changes into play such as transparent oversight. You can read more about the reforms here. The reforms will be fully implemented by 12 September 2025. 

Academic trainees contribute significantly to the NHS in their clinical roles through the delivery of clinical care, supervision, and leadership. University-employed academic trainees are often very experienced resident doctors in the final stages of a training programme. While NHS-employed academic trainees have had the right to ER, we have heard that those employed by a university often face challenges in getting access to these systems.

For these reasons, we are pleased that the revised ER guidance now calls for clinical (NHS) employers to make every effort to extend this safety-critical process to academic trainees who are substantively employed by a university. 

This will give university-employed academics the ability to report breaches in their working hours arising from activities during their clinical roles. The clinical employer will carry the responsibility for provisioning access to ER for university-employed academic trainees. JATS (the joint academic trainees subcommittee)  will continue to work with UKRDC to develop further guidance on rolling out these reforms. 

We fully agree with the recommendation that access should be extended to academic trainees through a standardised clinical contract. Establishing a standard honorary NHS contract for university-employed academic trainees has the potential to reduce the administrative burden (for both residents and employers), avoid delays in onboarding, and reduce variation in access to this safety-critical process.