Case Study
Staff Bank and Neutral Vendor Agency Management
On-the-ground support to manage and strengthen temporary staffing operations for Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust.
ALL STAFFING GROUPS including non-clinical
Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust
Headline results
99%
overall fill rate
67%
medical agency spend reduction
90:10
bank to agency ratio
100%
direct engagement efficiency
0%
unwanted agency use
It is extremely valuable to have a staff bank partner embedded within our Trust that we can depend on.
Contract Manager
Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust
The background
Formed in 2010, Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust (CLCH) is one of the largest community healthcare providers in the UK, employing more than 4,500 and delivering community health services to over two million people across eleven London boroughs and Hertfordshire.
During the pandemic, like many trusts, CLCH found it increasingly challenging to service the surging demand for community-based services. Average fill rates across all staffing groups were low and the incumbent team were struggling to maintain required service levels in the face of exponentially rising demand.
The challenge
CLCH covers a very large geographical area, with over 200 individual sites and directorates. Trust executives were keen to minimise disruption, keeping the existing vendor management system (Allocate) and avoiding major process changes in the first few months.
Many service unit managers were also disillusioned with the responsiveness of the incumbent staff bank provider and had begun to manage their own temporary staff directly. As a result, the Trust had unsustainable levels of retrospective bookings and direct agreements with escalated rates.
The solution
Responsive and proactive bank and agency management
Litmus brought in a larger team and rapidly gained positive feedback for providing a much more responsive and proactive service, smoothly managing the absorption of services across a new area (Brent and Harrow), and onboarding enough new bank workers to cover over 200 outstanding hard-to-fill vacancies.
Over a period of four years, Litmus transformed the temporary staffing operation, strengthening recruitment and quality assurance processes and steadily replacing high-cost and unwanted agency use with bank, migrating over hundreds of long-term agency workers.
Benefits
Results and benefits
Key achievements included:
- Increasing fill rates to 99% with an improved 90:10 bank-agency ratio
- Reducing medical agency spend by 67%
- Eliminating all high cost and unwanted agency bookings
- Introducing direct engagement, achieving 100% throughput
- Successfully migrating hundreds of agency workers onto the bank
- Recruiting new bank workers to cover 200+ outstanding vacancies
- Engaging with 30% more framework-compliant suppliers
- Delivering a highly responsive 24-hour booking service
Talk to Litmus
Keen to optimise your staff bank?
Speak to Litmus about how we can support to transform temporary staffing control and reduce agency reliance.
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