Management of Mass Vaccination Programme Commended by NHS England

Medacs provided a quick and effective workforce response to rapidly emerging challenges on the vaccination programme lending staffing support to a broad range of other providers across the South East. 
Their commitment to and involvement with the vaccination programme has been exemplary and their sustainable solution would form an excellent blueprint for a national ‘best practice’ vaccination workforce model

NHS England Director of Vaccination Workforce and Vaccine Equalities Lead

The Challenge

In December 2020, BOB ICS, led by Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, commissioned Medacs Healthcare to recruit and manage the workforce needed to deliver vaccinations for 1.2 million residents in the Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire regions. 
Three mass vaccination sites were initially planned, and the programme team needed a large resource pool of clinical, management and non-clinical workers with the flexibility to match the available supply of vaccines.  

It was essential to recruit a new pool of contingent workers, without drawing on existing key workers, to avoid impacting already-stretched NHS services in the region.  Speed was also critical, with an urgent need to deliver all nationwide vaccine rollouts at pace and scale to combat the pandemic. Medacs needed to act as a single point of contact for the ICS team, centrally managing a range of supply chain staffing partners, alongside training, compliance, rostering and payroll processes for all contingent workers. Consolidated invoicing was also a key requirement to simplify administration.

The Challenge

HDFT is an integrated acute and community Trust with a main hospital site situated in Harrogate. Due to the proximity of other larger hospital sites, the Trust operates in a competitive environment for temporary medical staff.  Unfilled shifts carry significant risk, requiring the Trust to implement other contingency plans to maintain levels of high-quality care.

HDFT needed to increase their fill rates to mitigate these risks, and as a result, the Trust was compelled at times to turn to high-cost agencies to provide the locum cover they needed, which was driving up costs and risking compliance. The Trust urgently needed to increase fill rates, improve compliance in line with framework specifications and reduce temporary staffing costs in line with NHS Improvement targets.

To better control their temporary staffing challenges, they also needed intelligent reporting to help them understand the evidence-based causes of demand and proactively implement change.

The Approach

Medacs mobilised the service in just three weeks, over the Christmas period, rapidly launching targeted recruitment campaigns and building a dedicated pool of over 400 healthcare professionals, with sister company Blue Arrow supporting with recruitment for non-clinical roles. Compliance, inductions and practical training were managed with oversight from Medacs’ independent Clinical Governance team and workers were booked into shifts from January as the three mass vaccination sites opened and expanded, with compliant applicants added daily and rostered at short notice, often within 48 hours.

As vaccine availability fluctuated, Medacs flexed supply up and down, keeping workers engaged by redeploying them to other vaccination sites. The resource pool also supported NHS staff vaccinations, Primary Care Networks, roving and pop-up clinics, and later the School Age Immunisation Service. BOB ICS was the first region to go live with school-age vaccinations, a month ahead of the government mandate. 

The Solution

Despite the significant challenges associated with sourcing, developing, training, deploying and managing a brand-new vaccination workforce, Medacs consistently met the staffing needs of the programme. Over 900 vaccination workers were recruited in total, with rostering and payroll managed for an average of 10,000 shifts a month across multiple sites, achieving an average 94% fill rate.  Supply was adapted to suit changing models and objectives, and support successfully extended to Hospital Hubs, PCNs and the wider South East Region.

Over 3 million people were rapidly vaccinated across the South East region, saving lives and supporting the health of the local population. The BOB ICS workforce model subsequently received national recognition and a commendation from NHS England, as an example of best practice. The project was also a shortlisted finalist for the 2022 HSJ Staffing Solution of the Year award. 

Despite significant challenges, Medacs Healthcare have delivered an incredibly responsive service, rapidly recruiting and managing the staff we needed across a wide variety of settings and locations. Thanks to their dedicated efforts, BOB ICS has successfully rolled out vaccines across all our mass sites as planned, and been able to broaden the reach of our workforce pool to support pop-up clinics, hospital hubs, primary care and the wider South East region.

-Senior Responsible Officer for Vaccination Programme