Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust joins Flexishift Collaborative Bank

Liaison Workforce

Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear (CNTW) NHS Foundation Trust has recently joined the Lead Employer Trust’s Doctors in Training collaborative bank. Serving a population of around 1.7million people, CNTW is one of the largest mental health and disability trusts in England; providing mental health, learning disability and neurological care to people across the north of England.

The Flexishift bank, set up in December 2017, already helps to cover thousands of vacant medical shifts across the North East, with seven acute foundation trusts working together to ensure continuous high standards of patient care. Being able to passport workers across the region and reducing overall expenditure associated with a temporary medical workforce, Flexishift facilitates true collaboration within the North East & North Cumbria. With CNTW joining the collaborative bank, trainee junior doctors will now also have the opportunity to work temporary shifts within a mental health setting.

Linsey Richards, Head of Human Resources at the Lead Employer Trust, said: “I’m delighted that Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear have joined the North East collaborative bank and welcome junior doctors in training from across the region to gain experience in a mental health trust. The bank already has over 1000 doctors registered, covering 35 specialities, and through this partnership with Liaison Workforce, we can support CNTW to reduce their agency spend.”

The bank is powered by Liaison Workforce’s TempRE technology, which drives productivity, innovation and compliance for trusts, and has the following benefits:

• Education and training – providing training to both system users and trusts to ensure effective usage
• Patient outcomes – quality improvement and patient safety
• Technology and support – joint processes, technology and governance, saving costs to reinvest in care.
• Workforce planning – greater use of rostering data and analysis to know ‘who works where’, and to create an increased pool of staff and specialisms to meet demand across sites.
• Payroll support – doctors working through Flexishift are paid monthly.
• Maximising regional bank resource – prioritising regional bank workforce resulting in improved staff experience, higher morale and retention, as well as providing continuity of care for patients.

Since its launch in 2017, a total of 114,081 hours have been booked by junior doctors via the Flexishift bank. Flexishift also monitors the DIT rates across the region, saving trusts from paying a further 10% in agency fees – funds which can then be fed back into frontline services.

To find out more, please visit the Flexishift website at www.nhsflexishift.co.uk