Managed workforce bank solution

Managed workforce bank solution for Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust

Bank Partners is the UK’s market-leading independent provider of NHS staff bank management and outsourced staffing solutions. By understanding the values and objectives of our trusts, we work in partnership to provide successful, cost-effective and compliant managed workforce bank solutions, tailored to reduce agency spend and optimise efficiency.

The challenge

Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust engaged a number of suppliers in a mini competition tender in 2017 to assess a new route to market for its outsourced bank solution across all staffing groups. The trust had a plan in place with an alternative supplier but was aiming to assess the market for an updated solution to reduce spend, streamline processes and increase fill.

The trust’s spend in November 2017 was averaging £2.5 million on temporary staffing costs across numerous suppliers and had an average fill rate from bank of less than 50%. It asked potential suppliers to detail how they would increase the fill rates to a desired 80% while reducing costs and increasing efficiencies.

The solution

Bank Partners was successfully awarded the contract with Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust in June 2018 and implemented an outsourced bank solution in partnership with the trust with a ‘go live’ date of 5th November 2019 following successful implementation. The solution aimed to provide the trust with a fully integrated service to manage total supply of the temporary workforce requirement. Following discovery period, Bank Partners completed the following processes to assign a bespoke, outsourced staff bank service to the trust’s specific requirements, values and goals:

• Specialist on-site account team, including contract manager and bank business partner
• Onsite compliance, bookings and recruitment teams
• Seamlessly integrated technology
• Bespoke attraction campaigns, including individual logo and microsite
• Supply chain management
• Management information and market insight
• Specialist compliance and governance mapping, including training support and planning

These streamlined processes were mapped and implemented in 13 weeks post-award and 100% were in place and functional when the contract commenced.

The results

At time of writing, Bank Partners has now been working in partnership with the trust for over a year and has increased the average total fill rate to 82%.

Highlights in fill rate across staff groups can be seen below:

• In nursing, bank hours filled have increased by over 11,000 hours in November 2019 compared to November 2018
• AHP bank fill has more than doubled between November 2018 and November 2019, with average total fill rates increasing to 84%
• Doctors staff group has seen the largest increase in bank fill rates, with almost double the hours filled when comparing November 2018 and November 2019. January 2020 saw the highest fill rate to date with 59% of hours filled via bank staff, equating to an increase of 5,869 filled hours.

The partnership to date has resulted in an average monthly saving to the trust of £74,000 per month, equalling a cost saving of approximately £1.1 million by November 2019. Bank Partners is committed to continuous improvement to ensure ongoing quality and cost savings. The account team has several continuous improvement projects in place to add further value to the partnership:

• Collaborative bank
• Agency tiering
• Health Care Assistant Programme
  • supporting HCAs who have care certificates but only have nursing home experience to join the bank

To find out more about Bank Partners managed workforce solutions, please contact businessdevelopment@bankpartners.co.uk