Our latest Q2 Taking The Temperature report into temporary staff spending across the NHS has shown yet another increase in the levels of bank staff being sourced to fill temporary gaps in the rota – a further rise of 4 per cent from 25 to 29 per cent of all bookings made. This is great news for the NHS as bank staff bookings are as much as 40 per cent lower than the standard placement route for locum Consultants, with potential savings of £332 per eight-hour shift.
We’re supporting a number of NHS trusts and organisations to establish their own banks, and collaborative banks, and our TempRE Bank solution means that trusts can create a larger pool of bank workers who already know the hospital, saving orientation/induction time. This is on top of the obvious cost savings of having a pool of bank staff to plug gaps in the rota. Locum workers also benefit from joining a NHS bank – workers can record availability, so they get more of the shifts they want.
What’s also significant in our latest report is the continued fall in the number of locum bookings being made via standard placement – where they are sourced, contracted and paid via an agency and arguably the most expensive way to source temporary workers. Our Liaison Workforce client report data shows that only 10 per cent of locum workers were booked via standard placement in Q2.
Converting all agency direct employment and standard placement hours to bank would save a further £22m annually across the 55 trusts in our analysis, representing 25% of NHS trusts in England. So, with a potential saving of £88m to the NHS simply by converting the way they source temporary workers, trusts’ efforts to increase their banks are clearly an effective route to greater savings.
