The South East Temporary Staffing Collaborative has been named the winner in the Data-Driven Transformation Award category at the prestigious Health Service Journal (HSJ) Awards.
The award acknowledged the work of 27 acute, community and mental health trusts across the South East of England, supported by NHS Workforce Alliance, to transform the way temporary staffing is managed across the region.
The announcement was made on 21 November 2024 at the HSJ’s national awards ceremony in London, which recognises and rewards hard-working teams and individuals for their exceptional achievements in the NHS. As well as the award presentations, the evening also featured a keynote speech from Wes Streeting, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, who told the room that they were an “inspiration” who showed they could “get the NHS back on its feet”.
The HSJ judging panel recognised that by “working together across the South East, 27 acute, community and mental health trusts have come together to transform the way temporary staffing is managed across the region. Utilising the power of data, the trusts have shared their intelligence through digital platforms to provide visibility and enhance decision making, reducing annual spend on agency workers by £125m (based on the previous year) . By moving from “competition to collaboration”, trusts now secure best value through digitally enabled transformation and trusted transparency.” They also commended the scalability and complexity of the work, noting that the team demonstrated real passion to make a difference.
Since the programme’s inception in 2022/23, they have achieved remarkable outcomes:
- Off-framework usage has been reduced from 8.8% to just 0.6%% (as of M6 24/25)
- Total agency savings of £224 million have been achieved over a two-year period (M1 2022/23 to M12 2023/24), with a further £56 million reduction YTD (M6) 24/25
- Cap compliance has steadily improved, rising from 33% (M1 2022/23) to 53% (M6 24/25), driven by the Agenda for Change agency project.
To read the winning nomination entry in full, please visit the HSJ Solutions website here.
Caroline Corrigan, Chief People Officer at NHS Frimley and Programme SRO, said: “The partnership approach has involved working closely with trusts from across the region, NHS South, Central and West Commissioning Support Unit, NHS England, the procurement frameworks and other partners to deliver significant reductions in agency spend, off-framework supply and increased compliance with NHS England agency caps. The drive and passion of colleagues and partners across the NHS family to deliver on shared objectives has been truly phenomenal.”
Parjinder Basra, Programme Director for the South East Temporary Staffing Collaborative, said: “This award recognises the whole region coming together to solve problems. Key to the success has been the development of a Power BI tool which analyses and shares the temporary staffing data of our Collaborative trusts, increasing transparency across the region and enabling intelligence driven decision-making.”
Andy Rouse, Head of Procurement and Supplier Assurance, said: “We are so proud to have partnered on such an important piece of work which is transforming the way temporary staffing is managed across the region. We know South East Temporary Staffing Collaborative’s work is already seeing a big positive impact on staffing, and ultimately the care NHS organisations can provide to patients, and that is fantastic to see. Thank you HSJ for highlighting the Collaborative for this special award.”
For a full list of the award winners from the night, please visit the HSJ website here.