Workforce Planning Team of the Year Award 2019

Winner: The Flexible Workforce Team at Bradford Teaching Hospitals

This award celebrated excellence in integrated workforce planning. Winners of this award will have succeeded in identifying innovative and cost-effective solutions to address workforce or organisational issues that have had a negative impact on clients e.g. retention and recruitment of staff, supply routes, skills gaps, or waiting times. Above all, the judges will be looking for evidence of success.

The Flexible Workforce Team from Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is made up of nurse bank, e-rostering and the locum booking teams who are responsible for managing the temporary workforce across the trust, from cover for bank and agency doctors through to paying invoices.

The 10-strong team understand the importance of filling every shift to ensure that patient care is consistent and safe, and by increasing the internal nurse bank by 30 per cent they have significantly reduced the need for agency staff in just six months.

In 2016, the team were challenged to reduce agency spend by £6 million. Over the last three years they have already saved £9.4 million, having worked together to challenge agency use and negotiate hourly rates daily.

Rachel Pyrah, Flexible Workforce Services Manager at Bradford Teaching Hospitals, said: “I am delighted that our department has won the national Our Health Heroes award for the Workforce Planning Team of the Year.

“I am extremely proud of the hard work the whole team has put in to achieve the results we have seen over the last three years. This award is recognition of the dedication, commitment and passion that every single member of the team puts into their role.

“They work tirelessly to support clinical staff in rostering and in the deployment of temporary staff to ensure quality services and patient care are maintained.”

John Rogers, Chief Executive at Skills for Health, said: “The Workforce Planning Team Award was a popular category for nominations, which just goes to show that healthcare professionals, like those who make up the Flexible Workforce Team at Bradford Teaching Hospitals, are regularly going the extra mile for staff and patients.

Locum’s Nest, an app which connects clinicians to bank work in healthcare organisations, is the sponsor for this category. Co-Founder of Locum’s Nest, Ahmed Shahrabani, said: “Congratulations to Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, the three teams involved in this project have clearly demonstrated the outcomes of effective collaboration by achieving an impressive saving of £9.4 million on agency spend.”

Find out more about the Our Health Heroes Awards here.