The Challenge

Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust (NGH) relied heavily on agency locums for medical temporary staffing. Due to archaic methods of communication within the Trust, doctors were actually not aware of how to book bank shifts, resulting in a high number of shifts being filled by expensive agency workers at shifts rates, costing on average £243 (54%) more than bank workers per shift.

The Solution

Patchwork Health worked with the Trust to promote a full scale culture change within departments, to prioritise the use of bank clinicians rather than sending shifts straight to agency. Through the implementation of Patchwork’s tech-enabled bank service, the Trust streamlined its temporary staffing process, enabling departments to advertise shifts instantly and trust-wide, and grow the staff bank both via internal and external recruitment.