Integrated Care 24 (IC24)
A True Recruitment Partner
Hallam Medical and Integrated Care 24
Integrated Care 24 (IC24) provides vital and innovative Primary Care services to over 4 Million patients across the UK via a range of services including, GP Out of Hours Services, NHS Walk-in Centres , Urgent Care Centres, NHS 111 Services and Community Services.
Background
During an extended period of rapid growth, covering a wide geographical reach and broad spectrum of services, IC24 found they were utilising a large number of recruitment agencies to meet their ever growing demand.
This type of agency usage is not unusual and brings with it a range of commonly encountered issues such as:
- Variation of Agency Staff & Skills -> Lack of Continuity for Patients & Services
- Increased Agency Cancellations & Decreased Fill Rates -> Increased Admin time for Clinical Leads, Staff Bank & Rota Managers
- Variation of Agency & Charge Rates -> Increased Spend and Loss of Financial Control
- As part of our consultative approach Hallam Medical presented a Preferred Supplier List (PSL) solution to the IC24 Board and Senior Management Team.
Our innovative PSL solution was tailored using Tier Levels based upon our understanding of IC24’s specific requirements.
Following a rigorous procurement process, involving 4 agencies in total, Hallam Medical was awarded the PSL Tier exclusively for the supply of Temporary and Permanent Clinical Staff including:
- Advanced Nurse Practitioners
- Community Nurses (Band 5, 6, 7 and 8a)
- Emergency Nurse Practitioners
- Clinical Streamers
- Emergency Care Practitioners
- 111 Clinical Advisors
The Challenge
To provide high quality, readily available and reliable agency staff to support IC24 services, and the ever increasing demand upon those services.
The solution must be cost effective and provide real cost and efficiency savings whilst increasing skill mix via the delivery of a new clinical staffing model.
Action
The starting point for all successful agency/supplier relationships is a true partnership approach.
Working closely with the IC24 Board, Service Managers and Clinical Leads we developed a full understanding of not only the individual challenges and requirements of each service but also the overall aims and objectives of IC24 as an organisation.
This approach was integral in allowing us to:
- Visit each IC24 service building trust and relationships
- Understand and share best practice between all IC24 services
- Identify process driven efficiency savings for rota management
- Standardise Pay & Charge Rates across all IC24 services
- Jointly develop workforce plans to enhance skill mix within all IC24 services
- Develop joined up Advertising and Marketing Campaigns increasing staff retention
- Introduce dedicated Account Managers to increase and improve communication
Hallam Medical meets all our high quality and professional clinical requirements. We feel reassured that we will get a true ‘IC24’ candidate at each placement. The team at Hallam understand what we mean by professionalism and quality and they understand how important this is for any NHS provider.
As a not for profit Social Enterprise we are focussed on putting our profits back into the services which we provide to our patients. Working with the team at Hallam has helped us recalibrate our staffing model, for example our skill mix uses ANPs alongside GPs and the efficiency savings mean that we can put money back into front-line services and support our local communities. Thank you to all the Hallam Medical team for your continued professionalism and we look forward to working with you in the future.
Managing Director - IC24
Outcomes
This approach has allowed Hallam Medical to become a true recruitment partner to IC24.
This has far-reaching benefits including:
- Cost savings of up-to 45% on agency staff via skill mix and standardised rates
- Time/efficiency savings for IC24 staff via streamlined processes
- Streamlined recruitment process allowing for rapid staff ramp up for new services
- Real time Business Intelligence (MI) providing Hours, Fill Rates and Actual/Forecast Costings
- Consistent high quality agency staff providing continuity of patient care
- Total transparency and control over temporary workforce
- Compliance and Clinical Governance from an LPP National Framework approved agency supplied
