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Service Case Studies

Royal Surrey County Hospitals saves £640,000 through worker engagement

The locum staffing bill at Royal Surrey County NHS Foundation Trust had been increasing year-on-year in the run up to the agency rate caps introduction in 2016. Additionally, IR35 legislation was announced to be rolled out into the public sector early in 2017 which alerted the Trust to the option of a worker engagement partner.

Royal Surrey County NHS Foundation Trust began to research a worker engagement provider who would meet their strict compliance criteria. +Us stood out due to their fully-employed Direct Engagement model which boasted savings of up to 20% on the Trust’s locum staffing bill. The +Us model was also compliant to IR35 legislation changes and more recently the Criminal Finances Act 2017 which shifted worker status accountability from the locum onto the Trust. By choosing +Us, the Trust was reassured that the payment of their workforce was managed compliantly.

Implementing the Direct Engagement solution into Royal Surrey County NHS Foundation Trust required reassurance to all stakeholder groups.

Anita Carpenter, Account Manager at +Us organised for drop in sessions to be held for locums and recruitment agencies separately who had concerns about the fullyemployed Direct Engagement model. Further to this, the key contacts at the Trust were wholly briefed on the changes and bought along the transition together.

St Helens & Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (STHK) partner with +Us and Patchwork

STHK had a vision for their temporary workforce – the ability to engage with, and book shifts within, their organisation through systems that enabled workers to pick up shifts quickly and easily, whilst ensuring the most efficient and effective system was in place to satisfy financial and governance requirements.

Working in partnership with Patchwork and +Us, a project  plan was put in place that would initially see the roll out for Medics closely followed by development work to open the system up to all staff groups across the Trust. This would incorporate digital sign off for escalated rates, alongside end-to-end digital technology driven processes.

The system was implemented and operational within 4 weeks, enabling bank workers to flexibly self-book onto vacant shifts in line with their personal schedules, resulting in 85% shift fill rates within the first 3 months.

Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust appoint +Us to deliver fully managed service

Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust needed to secure two additional teams of theatre nurses to help the elective theatre recovery plan. They wanted to seek an alternative method to standard Insourcing Projects to procure the agency nurses for a minimum of 6 months.

+Us was appointed as the service provider, due to the technology available to provide. This enabled candidates to be block booked for the full duration of the project ensuring consistency in service levels and continuity of service. They were managed through the +Us Workforce Manager system and audit checks were completed before a candidate started.

We established well-rounded relationships with nursing agencies on the Workforce Alliance with Heath Trust Europe Frameworks who were able to service the Elective Theatre Recovery Plan in a cost-effective and compliant manner. Our Workforce Manager system was used alongside E Roster to manage all of the agency bookings.

NHS Trust and Health Board Testimonials

As part of our review of temporary staffing, we were looking to improve our controls on medical staffing and to ensure that we paid the correct amount of VAT in all cases. We considered a number of different models and potential providers, but we decided on +Us…

…the VAT component of the model seemed to be more robust than their competitors; and +Us’ track record with personal services companies and HMRC compliance, gave us reassurance.

This has been a good relationship so far for us. We have been very pleased with the high quality management information which helps us make more efficient decisions, and the electronic workflows and payment uploads, which save us administrative time.
+Us have continued to provide dedicated and hands on support, making this a very straightforward transition.

We chose +Us above other providers because the team were genuine, honest and transparent.

The smooth transition over to them was supported by the fact that the team who first presented +Us to us, were the same team who managed our project. Since then, they have become part of the wider team and don’t feel at all like an external organisation.

We have a dedicated account manager who is always on hand and comes to visit regularly. This ensures that when (few and far between) issues are logged, they are always resolved in under 24 hours.

+Us are solid professionals. First and foremost, they are an accountancy and legal firm which means that we don’t lose sleep over IR35 compliance, and their weighty financial presence offers constant peace of mind.

I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend the +Us team.

Yeovil District Hospital highly recommend Plus Us Medical Services. We have peace of mind that IR35 rules are adhered to and are making savings on our agency usage in a challenging time of NHS funding. We thank them for their help and assistance with improving our daily processes and look forward to working with them on a new Bank system.

+Us have been working with our Consortium, a group of 9 NHS Acute Trusts with an annual spend on Medical Agency Locums of £21m. A number of these Trusts have appointed +Us through the Crown Commercial Services G-Cloud Framework.

One of the first Trusts within the Consortium to appoint +Us has received an exemplary service, that has resulted in significant update with Agency Doctors which has surpassed monthly improvement projections on take up.

+Us’ approach to the implementation and go live was undertaken in a well-structured, timely manner, and they worked closely with the Trust project lead, engaging with Service Line Managers, and the Finance team to ensure smooth transition with the introduction of the new system. +Us have a proactive approach to the delivery of their service, and we would highly recommend them to other Trusts.

Since we implemented the +Us system we have moved from paper timesheets to electronic timesheets which has streamlined our internal processes, saved us time and helped us use the resources in other areas of the trust.

+Us provide excellent Management information each month with the breakdown of all our agency spend. It has improved the visibility of the Trust’s medical locum spend immeasurably and has enabled us to provide ADO’s with accurate information on a regular basis. It also highlights the agency commissions and allowed us to validate the rates we were paying against those agreed in the framework. The Management information we receive reports our instant savings and forms part of our reporting to the board.

We procured +Us via the G-Cloud framework, this provides the Trust with a compliant route to market and was a very simple and quick process the team helped us from start to finish.

+Us has been working with our NHS Foundation Trust for approximately 6 months and has successfully delivered significant savings for the organisation. We have found +Us very easy to work with and they have been very responsive to our requirements. Their team is very knowledgeable and always on hand to offer advice and support and they have worked well with our existing processes and agency providers.

Client Testimonials

Nick really has been a superstar, obtaining, collating and sending through the data which was only discussed yesterday afternoon within 24hrs is an incredible achievement. This not only demonstrates a great work ethic but also a passion for keeping our working relationship extremely positive.

I cannot offer enough gratitude for helping the Trust out with this information so quickly!

I would like to take this opportunity to personally thank you, Anne, so very much for your amazing support over the last 3 years to Wakefield CAMHS! You have been so patient, efficient and overall fantastic!

Today, Warrington and Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust went live with our interface between +Us and Patchwork Health.

Big thanks particularly to Anna Jackson, Tom Arnold and Kieran Airey for all their work behind the scenes…..such an easy, stress-free implementation with them taking the lead on the work. They were the absolute stars of the show!

Thanks also to Mark Pridmore and Jason Palmer for keeping me on track.

Real collaborative working between us all and it’s great working with you.