South West London’s collaborative bank leads the way in NHS Trust partnerships

Case Study: Cloud Staff

Introduction

Some forward-thinking trusts have already recognised this direction of travel and made significant steps forward in demonstrating the benefits of innovating around collaborative working.

Since April 2018, the South West London Collaborative Bank (SWLCB) was created to form the first staff-sharing platform in the UK. It has integrated rostering and bank systems to provide visibility of working patterns across South West London and Surrey and drive ahead with collaborative workforce initiatives.

As an Acute Provider Collaborative (APC) who decided to develop a Collaborative Staff Bank as one of its workforce priorities, the SWLCB is made up of Epsom & St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust, Kingston Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust in partnership with RLDatix.

Together, they created Allocate CloudStaff, a solution that integrates available shifts at every Trust onto a single platform. This means workers registered at one staff bank can easily book vacant shifts at any of the other partner Trusts using the Me app.

The aim of SWLCB is to develop a collaborative health and social care workforce that works across existing organisations and clinical boundaries. This creates a step-change in the ways Trusts work together, and is now recognised as a way to achieve with pace the goals of the Interim NHS People Plan. It forms part of a workforce sustainability strategy, and was recognised as an important contribution to realising the Trusts’ overall agency savings and staff retention plans.

The project went live in April 2018 with the goal of achieving a minimum financial savings of over £100,000 within the first two years, and looking to double those savings by year three.

These savings were achieved by providing substantive and bank only workers the opportunity to work at other Trusts, focusing initially on only Band 2 healthcare assistants and Band 5 registered nurses.

This change also reduces the Trusts’ reliance upon agency staff whilst maximising existing these NHS staff resource. Based on the success to date, the Trusts’ HR Directors are now looking to expand the
Collaborative Bank across other staff groups and consider new collaborative approaches.

The Department of Health and Social Care recently the SWLCB project to monitor its progress. Sam Rodger, Head of Temporary Staffing Strategy commented:

“We believe that, through effective and intelligent use of in-house and collaborative banks, the NHS can offer true flexible working to its staff, while fostering a workforce that is agile and responsive to real-time patient needs. A collaborative bank, underwritten by interoperable technology, enables trusts to take a holistic approach to workforce planning, and empowers them to deploy their staff both within and between trusts, drastically reducing reliance on expensive and opaque recruitment agencies, while improving working lives. Collaboration is essential if we’re to make to the NHS the best it can be for patients and the workforce. We have seen that collaboration on temporary staffing can, in particular:

• Pave the way for the harmonisation of pay rates and give trusts collective bargaining power when dealing with agencies;
• Can greatly increase the pool of staff able to fill any temporary shift, and thereby increase opportunities for those who choose to work flexibly; and
• Can break down barriers, such as incompatible pre-employment checks and mandatory training, which currently make the movement of staff between trusts so burdensome.”