Master Vendor Partnership Delivers Improved Fill and Reduced Rates

Medacs Healthcare has supported the Trust to transform our approach to temporary staffing. A key priority for the Trust is safeguarding quality standards and the safe delivery of patient care. Our partnership has allowed us to maintain our focus on quality and safety whilst reducing costs and achieving a consistently high fill rate.

HR Business Partner

Background

Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust (HDFT) was seeking to partner with an experienced managed service provider to support the development of their temporary staffing model for medical staff. The Trust appointed Medacs Healthcare as Master Vendor via a competitive process for the supply of framework-approved medical locums.

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 Solution

Medacs teams implemented new systems and processes to provide increased fill rates and better visibility of temporary staffing spend. The trust also benefited from a more consistent supply of high-quality, compliant workers, improved controls and enhanced workforce intelligence to enable them to make proactive decisions.

With detailed management information, HDFT can now see spend and fill by department, enabling better rate controls and lead times for unscheduled care with more advanced planning. The approach to compliance has also been dramatically improved with new authorisation procedures and a full audit trail, with additional support provided by Medacs Healthcare’s independent Clinical Governance team.
Partnering with Medacs Healthcare has helped the trust to significantly reduce temporary staffing costs, maintain high fill rates and safeguard compliance standards.

Key Benefits

Key benefits delivered to date include:

• 36% increase on fill 
• Over 1,100 hours of care delivered monthly
• Reduction of £13.29 per hour in the unit price for medical locums
• Bespoke management information providing the visibility the trust needs
• Over 700 locum candidates recruited within a 50-mile radius
• Reduced compliance risk, with better processes and consistently higher quality standards in line with framework specifications
• Trusted delivery across a long-standing partnership