The challenge:
The Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust (MYHT) was running a paper-based in-house medical staff bank that was blighted by problems associated with excel spreadsheets, paper time-sheets, a monthly payroll, limited compliance and an absence of reporting on performance and cost. Fundamentally, medics were not motivated to join the in-house bank and were making agencies their first choice for securing additional hours, as such the medical bank was impossible to grow.
Trust objectives:
1. Maintain an overall shift fill rate of 97% to ensure safe provision of service
2. Ensure 100% of all locum booking / spend is controlled within the partnership arrangement
3. Ensure 80% of temporary staff come via the internal bank to ensure savings and continuity of care
4. Reduce agency rates to drive compliance to the NHSI agency cap and present substantial savings
5. Ensure Direct Engagement hits 85% of all remaining agency supply to realise immediate cashable savings
6. Specific improvements to the three Emergency Departments
7. Eradicate ‘last minute management’ and associated work pressures
8. Reduce temporary staffing costs
The solution:
Claritystaffbank®, a bespoke bank system supported by a dedicated on-site team. The Clarity technology was implemented to manage medical Bank, Agency and DE bookings, underpinned by a team of recruitment consultants, booking coordinators and compliance officers to reduce the administrative burden on Trust staff.
“The Trust undertook a rigorous search to identify a partner with whom to take the next steps in its journey to better manage its internal bank for medical staff and the search for agency medical locums where required. Clarity Workforce have shown over the first five months of the contract that our choice of partner was justified with some significant achievements in such a short period. Through their dedicated support on site and easy to use app we have grown our internal bank to in excess of 700 doctors from an initial starting point of 47 and seen a significant increase in shifts booked and filled with internal bank locums as well as helping us to take action to reduce the cost per hour of agency locums. Their impact has been such that for the first five months of the year the Trust has delivered below NHS I ceiling level for our agency locum provision.” Ian Carr, Associate Director at Mid Yorks Hospitals NHS Trust.
“I just wanted to send you a bit of positive feedback on the Clarity system! I have used it now for a few weeks to input locum shifts and enjoyed the benefits of the really handy app and computer interfaces and of course getting paid weekly. This is such a better system than the old paper forms and makes it much more user friendly. Plus, if people can do a locum one week and see the pay in their account the next week I’m sure it will only act as an incentive to people to pick up shifts.” Dr Cocker, A&E Department.
Key initiatives:
– Our dedicated on-site account director worked directly with rota managers, constantly refining our solution to suit their changing needs
– We embedded our systems within the specific rota co-ordinator group, helping to ensure best practice in everything from compliance to reporting
– A policy of no off-system agency spend was introduced, as was a comprehensive comms plan and a refreshed agency cascade to maximise fill rates while saving money
– Recruitment days were implemented to directly sign up substantive bank staff
– We also maximised VAT-saving Direct Engagement (DE) initiatives through our partnerships team
– A robust communications plan to ensure the change was managed efficiently and the processes were embedded
– Through these specific solutions, as well as implementing our renowned, state-of-the art workforce technology, we were able to exceed MYHT’s expectations.
The outcome: substantial savings, improved compliance and increased fill rates
By all of the primary measures, our project with MYHT has been a big success. Since the beginning of the engagement in 2018 we’ve vastly improved the bank fill rate, made huge DE and agency commission savings and transformed compliance. Some of the specific highlights include:
- The Trust is £1.3 million under its medics NHSI agency ceiling target for this financial year.
- There are currently 796 bank workers on bank, having risen from 50 in March 2018. Bank and agency fill rate is 88%.
- Bank fill rate is 44%.
- DE fill rate is 94%.
- VAT savings on bank is £734,676.
- DE savings amounts to £855,490.
- Agency commission savings is £327,119.
- Total savings/cost avoidance is £1,917,285 against a target of £1,766,149.
For more information contact amandajayne.bird@clarityworkforcetech.com
