Onsite Team Transforms Temporary Staffing and Consistently Delivers Savings

We trust Medacs Healthcare implicitly to efficiently oversee our temporary staffing operations, over the past few years they have reliably maintained fill and consistently delivered savings 

Assistant Director of Workforce and Organisational Development

Background

With ambitious plans to deliver challenging financial targets and reduce temporary staffing costs, Swansea Bay University Health Board upgraded their existing partnership with Medacs Healthcare from a Master Vendor arrangement to a comprehensive onsite Managed Service.

The Challenge

Without a thorough and centrally managed approach to temporary staffing, the Health Board was incurring unsustainable levels of agency spend. Individual departments were booking locums directly, via both on and off-framework agencies, with little knowledge or understanding of the costs. 

The Health Board needed much firmer procedures and control, along with detailed management information reports to help them understand what they were spending and why across each department. There was also a need to implement a Direct Engagement model to realise valuable additional VAT savings and efficiencies.

The Solution

"Medacs deployed a dedicated on-site Managed Service team to work closely with the Health Board to gain control of their locum spend and introduce new stringent booking and authorisation procedures. Activities included a review of all existing processes to identify inefficiencies, including in-depth analysis of junior doctor and consultant rotas.

Booking procedures were redesigned to improve rate control, the supply chain was improved and consolidated, and a new direct engagement model was introduced to realise VAT savings. Detailed monthly MI reports and data insights were prepared to provide the visibility the Health Board needed to understand what is driving demand and identify further potential staffing savings.  

Proactive permanent recruitment was also undertaken across hard-to-fill consultant grades and specialties, using data identifying potential substantive vacancies based on regularly recurring contract extensions and long-standing locum bookings. 

Results

• Fill rates consistently maintained above 97% 
• £2.4m in annual staffing savings
• 100% Direct Engagement efficiency for doctors and AHPs
• 24 substantive clinical vacancies filled including Radiology and Oncology Consultants
• Improved booking and authorisation processes and efficient supply chain management
• Transformed workforce strategy planning with granular MI reporting and regional market insights