How workforce software has supported the NHS’ Covid response
The Covid-19 outbreak has rapidly changed healthcare provision requirements across the nation in a dynamic manner. Now more than ever, connecting healthcare organisations with clinicians who are in the right place, at the right time and have the right skills rapidly and securely is of paramount importance. Consequently, we have seen a tremendous increase in tech adoption across the healthcare sector during the pandemic, as innovation quickly became a necessity to tackle the increasing demands and the tremendous strain placed on our national service.
For us, supporting the NHS has always been our number one priority and, in the last year, we have been able to rapidly develop and deploy new, innovative tools to provide additional support with healthcare workforce needs during the pandemic. Alongside Microsoft, we’re proud to have been one of the first to open up our platform to all healthcare organisations for free during the first 6 months of the pandemic. As a result, we quickly developed new products directly aimed at tackling some of the biggest workforce challenges in the NHS and in-line with our customers’ and users’ feedback.
Staying true to our values of transparency and honesty, we wanted to share the main areas of development work where we shifted priorities to make room for Covid-related work.
1. Predicting workforce needs
> How we support healthcare organisations
In March 2020, we launched our Covid-19 Workforce Intelligence Navigator (WIN), allowing NHS organisations to better predict their workforce needs and enabling them to have the appropriate clinical cover already in place when required. For the first time, we were triangulating our own user data with government released Covid-19 cases across the UK and publicly available ICU data.
NHS organisations using the Covid-19 Workforce Intelligence Navigator are able to see all the confirmed cases at a national level as an early-indicator proxy of imminent case surges in ICUs. This dataset is overlaid with the GMC data of all doctors that have activated their licenses within a region, giving a picture of supply and demand. For NHS organisations utilising the technology stack to manage their contingent workforce, this third parameter of data is used to predict future workforce requirements, ensuring the NHS is always one step ahead.
Only a few months after making WIN available to all healthcare organisations, we launched Locum's Nest Intelligence to enable NHS Trust HR and Finance teams to harness their data and have a real impact on their organisation’s wellbeing and productivity. The platform allows users to forecast their future workforce needs based on built-in system analytics and insights, with access to a powerful reporting dashboard that displays their organisation’s data in real-time and the ability to create and download NHSi-compliant reports within minutes.
> How we helped healthcare organisations and clinicians communicate better
Alongside the dashboard, we modified the Locum’s Nest Digital Passport, which is being used across the country by our 30,000+ users, to include Covid-19 self-isolation reporting. This is particularly useful for NHS organisations to help anticipate and better plan for the increased levels of sickness across the country.
Developed during the pandemic, with the aim of building a digital support to the healthcare organisation management teams, Locum’s Nest Community became an invaluable tool when it came to communicating PPE guidelines, Covid-19 risk assessment forms and staff surveys to the entire contingent workforce (not just full-time employees). Community is a central portal with easy access for both mobile app users and staff, ensuring secured and seamless communication across each NHS organisation.
> In-app modifications to support clinicians
In addition to the evolution of the Digital Passport and the creation of Community, we have also introduced a Covid-19 Dashboard on the Locum’s Nest app which is linked to Public Health England’s real-time data. This addition to the app acts as a useful shortcut for quick and easy access to real-time data of evolving Covid-19 cases nationally, particularly in the areas which have personal and clinical significance to our individual users.
With the pandemic’s heavy strain on our NHS people, Locum’s Nest Community gave us an opportunity to include new types content on the app aiming to help support our users’ mental health and wellbeing. The feedback from our close-knit community has been incredible and, given the appetite for such content, we are developing a whole host of new mental health content coming in the near future.
2. Staffing Vaccinations Hubs
On 8th December 2020, the UK initiated the world’s first mass immunisation campaign against Covid-19 by administering the first vaccination against the deadly virus. It is also the nation’s largest vaccination programme to date with almost 1,400 vaccination sites and 7 mass vaccination centres currently operating across England.
Healthcare providers are geared up to deploy the vaccine as rapidly and efficiently as possible, and tech has a significant and ongoing role to play. We have seen an exceptional appetite from healthcare organisations to staff their own vaccination centres and a tremendous response from healthcare professionals offering their support to work at these sites. In response to this tremendous demand from both NHS leaders and healthcare professionals, we have added a new Vaccinations Hub specialty on the Locum’s Nest platform to support our partner hospitals and GP practices staff their hubs by advertising vaccination-specific shifts to over 30,000 healthcare professionals.
In just a couple of weeks, these vaccination shifts have seen a 98% fill rate across both primary and secondary care.
On top of that, we are supporting our primary care partners, such as Cambridge & Peterborough Training Hub, by broadcasting GP Interim Care shifts at such a critical time in the pandemic. These shifts are aimed at helping transition patients back into their home environment after hospital or avoiding hospital admission altogether, which is invaluable in the fight against Covid-19.
3. Enabling collaboration across borders
The collective effort of filling GP Interim Care and vaccination shifts is enabling a stronger synergy between primary and secondary care services. When time, resources and our NHS community are as stretched as they currently are, flexibility and collaboration provide significant relief for both organisations and people.
As demonstrated time and time again, collaborative working is crucial to cope with the increasing service demand by allowing access to a fluid workforce resource that can be activated to meet the specific needs of healthcare organisations.
The Digital Collaborative Bank has been a fundamental resource in this, with 9 NHS Trusts and over 5,000 HR-compliant clinicians coming together to help fill vacancies during these challenging times.
By enabling visibility of all shift vacancies to all 5,000 doctors, the NHS organisations involved have seen their shift fill-rates increase from a national average of 24% to consistently in excess of 80% (bank-only), with some Trusts achieving bank-fill rates of >90%. Together, they accomplished a record-breaking 98% shifts filled across all sites and specialities in May 2020.
NHS organisations lowering their barriers to movement and working together have enabled the participating Trusts to share resources and adapt with demand dynamically. This has led to safer staffing levels across the board, significant financial savings and, most importantly, improved patient care as well as a fluid workforce supply which has proven to be very powerful during the Covid-19 outbreak.
This grassroots project led by Ashford & St Peter’s Hospitals NHS FT and Royal Surrey NHS FT now spans across 4 ICS/STPs and its members include: Hampshire Hospitals NHS FT, Salisbury NHS FT, Dorset County Hospital NHS FT, North Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust, Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS FT, Poole Hospital - University Hospitals Dorset NHS FT and Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS FT.
As new challenges arise every day in the face of the pandemic, there is a remarkable national effort to support our healthcare service from every angle instilling renewed hope and positivity, particularly with the efficient rollout of the vaccine underway. Tech providers are continuing to come together, pushing boundaries in the development of innovative and effective tech solutions that will not only help the immediate efforts to overcome the pandemic, but will hopefully offer a sustainable way of working in the long-term.
With that in mind, we want to thank everyone who has signed up to support the NHS’ vaccination efforts through the Locum’s Nest platform so far. For anyone interested in helping out, please feel free to reach out by emailing us at contact@locumsnest.co.uk and we’ll be more than happy to help out in any way we can.