Allied Health Professionals - no longer neglected by technology
Dr Nicholas Andreou,
Co-Founder
Back in June 2019, the Interim NHS People Plan outlined the significant role Allied Health Professionals (AHPs) will play to support the demands the NHS will face in the next ten years and help deliver the NHS Long Term Plan. This is because AHPs play a vital role in supporting patients to get well and stay well, but also because they are critical to new models of care.
On top of the challenges and backlog the NHS is currently experiencing, it is difficult to picture the size of the challenge for our AHP colleagues in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In line with our duty of care as doctors and our company’s ethos, Ahmed and I completely intensified our focus at the start of the pandemic towards delivering as much value as possible to our NHS partners. One thing we kept hearing from NHS HR/OD and medical colleagues alike was that no ward, department or clinic can function properly without the crucial multi-disciplinary input offered by the entire frontline NHS workforce, including AHPs, pharmacists and dentists. Whilst the pandemic has put NHS clinicians and nurses on the spotlight, the crucial AHP workforce has received less attention and are often described as the unsung army of healthcare workers - despite representing 6% of the total NHS workforce making them the third largest workforce in the NHS.
This diverse array of professions covered under the AHP* umbrella term is crucial to the delivery of modern healthcare. Numerous studies evidence that the greater the mix of skill sets and professions (not headcount), the better the outcome for patients. Sadly, there are a number of challenges across the system preventing the most effective use and deployment of AHPs across the NHS. In addition, their services are too often marginalised from the main public’s eye that tends to refer only to ‘doctors and nurses’.
We believe this needs to change.
For all these reasons, and because we believe AHPs, as all healthcare professionals, should be entitled to the best healthcare technology and flexible working options, we have been making bespoke product developments within the Locum's Nest ecosystem of apps to specifically cater for the exact needs of all NHS staff group such as each of the 14 Allied Health Professions, Dentists, Pharmacists and Nurses. We’ve already seen the power of healthcare technology throughout the pandemic and in line with Suzanne Rastrick, Chief Allied Health Professions Officer at NHS England, “Whilst it is important to increase the pipeline of AHPs, it is equally important that we enable our workforce to deliver and grow.”
From the very start, we designed our technology to help healthcare organisations manage both their contingent and substantive clinicians as one workforce unit as they’ll always, in some ways, rely on temporary staff to ensure safe staffing levels and support additional service needs. Now, we’ve made it possible to do the same across all NHS staff groups - from doctors, to pharmacists, dentists, AHPs and nurses - and, more importantly, it’s already delivering promising results.
Providing a total workforce solution to our existing partner Trusts
Ashford & St Peter’s Hospitals NHS FT and Mid & South Essex NHS FT, who were already achieving great results across Emergency Medicine with bank-fill rates exceeding 90% this winter, have been using Locum’s Nest to source qualified AHPs and dentists to fill their workforce gaps in the last 9 months.
> Spotlight 01: Ashford & St Peter’s Hospitals NHS FT <
The Trust uses Locum’s Nest to source qualified temporary workers from all staff groups, from medics to dentists, pharmacists, nurses and all AHPs. We have seen some really great shift fill rates for AHPs at the Trust:
Claire Emmerson, Locum’s Nest Senior Clinical Lead in charge of this implementation, said, “This enhancement has made remarkable improvements for the Trust, the most obvious being the ease of booking shifts and access to digital timesheets (in continuity with the rest of the Trust) for these healthcare professionals. Furthermore, we’ve been able to support Ashford & St Peter’s Hospitals NHS FT in finding replacements for last-minute cancellations, which is usually not an easy feat. However, I believe this was a drastic positive change for the Trusts’ AHP workforce as Locum’s Nest enables them to take control of their work-life balance, empowering them to easily choose the shifts they want to work, not the other way around.”
When asked about what this innovation has changed for the Radiology department, Susan Farrell, General Superintendent Radiographer for Ashford & St Peter’s Hospitals NHS FT, said,
“It’s a great visual display of shifts being covered and peace of mind that if someone has volunteered for a shift they know they have and have a visual reminder in the app. It’s been great in Radiology as it's very straight forward to publish a shift and staff can respond even on their day off or if they are at the other site rather than us trying to go round asking staff to cover a shift. They also won’t miss out if they are on leave. It has been very helpful when shifts need covering on the day as you can reach out to the whole team and get a response very quickly.
All timesheets can be managed as they come through rather than trying to sort through a whole pile of timesheets at the end of the month and trying to check they are all correct and chasing those staff that have forgotten to submit theirs. I am sure it is peace of mind for the staff that their timesheet has been submitted and will be paid on time and hasn’t gone astray at any point.”
And Elaine Beaumont, Workforce Resourcing Manager at Ashford & St Peter’s Hospitals NHS FT, highlighted:
“The Locum’s Nest platform has been a game-changer in Ashford & St. Peter’s Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust being able to source and deploy qualified temporary AHPs in a transparent manner according to our workforce needs. We have always advocated for collaboration and transparency and therefore we are delighted to be the first on the Digital Collaborative Bank - a grassroots project enabling partnering Trusts to share their pool of clinicians which we initially led with the Royal Surrey County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust - to pioneer the use of Locum’s Nest for AHPs.”
> Spotlight 02: Dentists <
Ashford & St Peter’s Hospitals NHS FT, Mid & South Essex NHS FT, Royal Surrey NHS FT and The Shrewsbury & Telford Hospital NHS Trust are all using Locum’s Nest to source qualified dentists to fill their workforce gaps.
We’re glad to have supported four large acute NHS Trusts to achieve such positive and encouraging results and are proud to have fully wired our suite of software and mobiles apps to support all healthcare organisations for all their workforce needs across all NHS staff groups.
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If you work in a healthcare organisation and would like to know how Locum’s Nest can support you sourcing temporary workers across all NHS staff groups, you can book a demo or directly get in touch with our Co-Founder, Dr Ahmed Shahrabani, on ahmed@locumsnest.co.uk.
If you are an AHP, pharmacists, dentist or nurse and want to better manage your work-life balance, download the Locum’s Nest app from the Apple Store or Google Play Store.
*An AHP is a healthcare professional qualified to perform services in the care of patients other than a doctor or nurse. AHPs make up a total of 14 different professions: