The challenge
We have worked with this well-known NHS London trust for more than a decade - and now provide a fully outsourced staff bank solution, with a full remit of all clinical and non-clinical staff categories. Our dedicated onsite team typically onboard 250 candidates and process 183,000 hours for the trust each month.
In February 2020, the trust approached Reed Talent Solutions to assume responsibility for recruiting and managing all casual ancillary workers, previously supplied via an outsourced service provider. We were tasked with creating a new staff bank to fill the trust’s vacancy gap of 20%, and transition across a pool of existing casual workers, with no disruption to their supply of service.
Furthermore, this workforce would not initially be set up on the trust’s workforce planning system, HealthRoster, so an alternative way of recording shifts, time worked and payroll needed to be found.
With the coronavirus pandemic beginning to take hold and placing increasing pressure on all NHS frontline services, it was imperative that this implementation should not divert the attention of our staff bank team and management colleagues, enabling them to effectively manage the surge in demand for doctors, nurses and healthcare workers at such a critical time.
Reed have provided a responsive recruitment service to secure lines of work in response to Covid-19. They have worked at pace to deliver some excellent candidates and have helped us set up two new banks for doctors and ancillary.
The solution
After assessing the resource and technology available to us, we decided to create a new standalone staff bank which would focus solely on supplying the ancillary workforce.
Due to the unprecedented demand on the NHS trust as a result of Covid-19, we worked tirelessly to get the new service up and running within four weeks – a process that would usually take 12 weeks.
Within that time frame we successfully delivered:
A new dedicated offsite team, who received fast-track training
New technology platform XMS, configured within 10 days
Roll out of Robo recruitment technology to directly engage with workers
The set up of over 150 candidates onto ESR Payroll and XMS
Transition and set up of support suppliers and their candidates to maintain continuity of service and payment for these workers
Vetted professionals via our fast-track remote screening service
The results
Testament to the strength of our 10-year partnership and the faith in our ability to quickly mobilise, we delivered an agile workforce solution while often working under extremely tight deadlines. We fulfilled our promise of completing this task in four weeks.
The diversity and robustness of our services meant we were well-placed to deploy an expert team quickly, without impacting the continuity of the critical cleaning, portering and ward host services during the pandemic.
In the first week, we deployed 164 workers – 90 of those workers were sourced from an existing bank – achieving a 100% fill rate, with all workers successfully paid in that time. We also finished building and setting up XMS and ESR platforms for the trust in just 10 days.
For our help to fill your vacancies, or your next opportunity, contact your nearest Reed office today.
