Agency Spend Reduction. Delivered.

Supporting the Trust to grip and control agency spend.

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Immediate savings realised of over £140,000 in approx. 8-10 weeks

SP workers converted to Agency Direct Employment, alongside substantive recruitment, resulting in projected £2.4m annual savings

True partnership with the organisation to achieve NHS goals

The Challenge

Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (WWL) has been working with Liaison Workforce since June 2021 to optimise Medical Bank and Agency management.

Whilst this arrangement has heralded a number of changes and improvements, including an 18% reduction in agency spend between 2022/23 and 2023/24, the Trust still had many standard placement (SP) workers being booked for shifts, meaning their agency spend continued to sit above the ceiling set by NHSE.

In April 2024, 43% of bookings were being made via SP – where they are sourced, contracted and paid via an agency, arguably the most expensive way to source temporary workers. Using Liaison Workforce’s solution allowed for greater visibility of bookings, and highlighted opportunities for immediate spend reductions. One of these opportunities was to reduce SP bookings.

The Solution

Following an internal drive from senior management to make changes, our experts made recommendations to advise and guide the Trust to reduce their SP bookings at pace. This included:

Placing a SP blocker in the TempRE system to restrict any new SP bookings
Working with agencies to look into whether any longstanding agency workers would consider converting to agency direct employment (ADE)
Proactively looking to replace SP workers through substantive recruitment or ADE workers
Continually monitoring SP bookings, and ensuring services new processes did not risk losing staff and services left vulnerable

Our experts also worked to educate and empower the Trust to renegotiate agency commission rates to make ongoing savings. This, alongside the system functionality, reports and training provided, has given the Trust the best opportunity to have the grip and control necessary to make savings.

The Outcomes

Working alongside the Trust to guide and advise on further savings and reduction of costly standard placement bookings, including:

Participating in weekly panel meetings to support on processes and approvals
Issuing weekly reports to demonstrate booking trends
Supplying monthly KPI reports for savings data analysis

These actions have led to immediate savings being realised in excess of £140,000 in approximately 8-10 weeks, and £2.4m in projected annual savings.

By supporting the Trust with bespoke data, it has enabled them to have the information they required either to recruit substantively where they were able to, or to convert SP to agency direct workers where substantive recruitment wasn’t an option. This encouragement and support to achieve further savings and ease external financial and workforce pressures will continue in partnership between Liaison and the Trust.

WWL has recently undergone a reorganisation change within Medical HR and by centralising the rota coordinators and working in close partnership with Liaison this has meant that the Governance and controls around temporary staffing booking are now vastly improved.

Katie is treated as part of the WWL team, we attend regular meetings with senior management and work together to achieve the end goal, using TempRE as the platform for detailed MI information and governance controls. I’m looking forward to seeing what savings can be achieved over the next 6 months.

Elaine Middleton

Medical Workforce Lead, WWL NHS FT

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