Flexible staff pools have long played an important role in the healthcare industry. Designed to make more efficient use of the skilled workforce, these staff banks bring a number of benefits to the NHS. These benefits include reduced hiring spends, better access to essential skills and professions, an ability to deploy staff across various sites as required, and reduced pressure on human resources following last minute unfilled shifts.
While flexible staff pools have always been important, the need to ensure the right resources are available at the right sites, at the right time, has never been more critical. As the NHS continues to manage the COVID-19 health crisis, begins to reintroduce routine healthcare services, and works to roll out the biggest mass vaccination programme the country has ever seen, workforce management is a huge concern.
In December 2020, in response to the growing workforce crisis, the NHS launched Primary Care Flexible Staff Pools; an initiative designed to help systems access GPs and deploy them across the local community as required. The system aims to improve capacity across primary care sites and better meet the needs of GPs that either want to work more flexibly, or need to work more flexibly in light of the global health crisis.
Under the Primary Care Flexible Staff Pools initiative, NHS England and NHS Improvement areas are being offered financial support in setting up their own flexible staff pools. Each eligible system can access up to £120,000 (NHSEI advisors will determine exact funding values for each system) to support the setting up, building, and development of staff banks, which can be used to cover administration costs, fees for digital tools essential for implementing the programme, and any networking costs.
For those systems with flexible staff pools already in place, funding may be available to help enhance existing setups. NHSEI advisors can provide more information on this.
As an approved supplier for the Primary Care Flexible Staff Pools programme, HYRE can help in setting up vital staff banks at this critical and challenging time. Offering a digital platform that can assist systems in enhancing clinical capacity and deploying staff more effectively across the community, the HYRE app is supporting systems by:
At HYRE, we’re proud to be playing an instrumental role in the setup of vital flexible staff pools across the NHS, helping to support local systems as they navigate the unique challenges of maintaining essential healthcare operations during a global pandemic.Contact us now to find out more.
Tags: staffing pools, flexible staff, Primary Care Flexible Staff Pools