Mass Vaccination Programme

Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West Integrated Care System (BOB ICS)

Background

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 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.

Challenge

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.

Shifts needed to be filled by a combination of healthcare professionals, non-clinical staff, volunteers and workers from existing staff banks, with rostering processes designed to prioritise use of the bank and 3rd sector support staff.

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.

Providing a service with the agility to flex the supply of workers up and down based on the fast-changing supply of available vaccines was also critical to ensure vaccines were not wasted.

The Solution

Medacs implemented the service in just 3 weeks, including the Christmas period, rapidly building a dedicated team, launching targeted recruitment campaigns, deploying new systems and processes and establishing a broad supply chain. Sister companies such as Blue Arrow played a key part in the supply of non-clinical staff.

The Medacs team worked extremely hard to keep workers engaged and committed to the programme throughout, navigating the challenges of needing to book, cancel and redeploy workers elsewhere at very short notice.

The pool of contingent workers built was sufficient to fully support:

Three mass vaccination sites in the region with steadily increasing yet fluctuating demand
10x Primary Care Networks across the ICS running their own vaccination programmes
The School Age Immunisation Service (SAIS) – BOB ICS was the first region in England to roll out vaccines to 12-15 year olds
A wide range of roving and popup clinics (walk-in, drive-through and van based services)

5 other ICSs across wider South East region, with workers deployed to fill staffing gaps for 32 NHS Trusts across Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight (In July 2021, 95% of shifts requested by ICSs in the South East were filled, in addition to shifts requested by BOB ICS)

Results

1000+ vaccination workers recruited, protecting frontline NHS staff

94% average fill rate with full rostering and payroll managed for 10,000 shifts a month

Staffing support provided for 5x other ICSs in addition to BOB ICS

First region in England to start school age vaccinations

Workforce model praised by NHSE/I as representing best practice

Finalist for HSJ Staffing Solution of the Year (2022)

“

Medacs consistently delivered highly trained, motivated and engaged staff and are seen as the strategic partners in ongoing vaccination programme. Their workforce has been the difference that has made the difference in BOB and across the South East Region

Head of Vaccination Workforce

Background

Challenge

The Solution

Results

“

Medacs consistently delivered highly trained, motivated and engaged staff and are seen as the strategic partners in ongoing vaccination programme. Their workforce has been the difference that has made the difference in BOB and across the South East Region

”

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