New workforce management software has helped the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust to save more than £1m in the system’s first year of operation.
Optimize-Roster, a new e-rostering system developed by HR software specialist Powertec jointly with the trust, interfaces with the NHS Electronic Staff Record (ESR).
It enables staff to enter shift requests directly into the system and provides tools to help managers match these to ward or department requirements. The system also analyses each roster, and tracks contracted hours, absence and lost time.
Powertec claims that Optimize-Roster can reduce bank and agency usage by at least 50%, reduce sickness levels, and achieve a 5% saving on nursing staff costs. In a typical NHS trust, it claims this will amount to £1m a year.
The company already works with 30 NHS trusts. With the national switch to ESR completed in March, it wanted a new e-rostering system that could work alongside the ESR.
Powertec’s managing director, Tony Ive, told E-Health Insider: “We have been working on the system with Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust for several years, as they had a need for a new rostering system to work with the new NHS ESR.
“In April 2005, we went live with the nursing teams in intensive care and accident and emergency. Over the past two years, we have been adding in all the other nurses, as well as areas known as ‘other clinicals’ – such as radiology and pathology staff – and also non-clinical staff, such as porters. Doctors will be next.”
Clare Edmondson, trust director of workforce development and HR, says the system has “delivered great benefits, not only in terms of benefits to patients, to staff and to our ward managers, but also to our financial efficiency.
“Optimize-Roster has helped us to deliver in excess of £1m saving on our pay bill, largely in nursing costs. It has undoubtedly exceeded our expectations.”
Ive added: “NHS trusts need software like this to introduce flexible working policies in line with the Improving Working Lives Standard, as well as to achieve full integration with HR and payroll systems and, crucially, to reduce expenditure on temporary staff
“Staff costs represent 75% of NHS expenditure, so the way staff are rostered has a very significant impact on a trust’s expenditure. Monitoring staff time to ensure it is used to maximum benefit is critical. The pilot at Royal Berkshire has demonstrated just how beneficial systems like this could be.”
Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust employs 4,500 staff and wanted to find a way of introducing more flexible working practices. It was also looking to achieve cost savings through a reduction in the use of expensive temporary staff.
Nigel Davies, chief nurse and director of public and patient affairs at the trust, said: “Optimize-Roster has been a real benefit from a clinical governance perspective.
“As director of nursing, I now have the assurance that we can drill down and know who was working where and when for any shift – whether that’s our own permanent staff or temporary staff.
“The establishments are uploaded to the system and then ward managers can see, according to a coloured flag, whether they’ve got too many staff – or indeed not enough staff – rostered for each shift. Also within the system we can see what skills we have per shift.
“Therefore, the system has helped us improve the care we provide to patients by ensuring we have the right establishment and skill mix in place on each ward.”
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