More than 60 suppliers are now available to support you to release extra clinical capacity within your trust via the NHS Workforce Alliance Insourcing framework.
Six new suppliers have joined the NHS Workforce Alliance Insourced Services to Support the Provision of Healthcare Services framework following the latest round of competition and are now available to help trusts to reduce their waiting list backlogs, with the latest figures showing that more than 7 million people are waiting for NHS treatment.
The framework’s 62 suppliers have capabilities spanning more than 45 different clinical service lines, including cardiology diagnostics, dermatology, diagnostic imaging, endoscopy services, ophthalmology services and general and specialist surgery. More than 40 NHS organisations have utilised the agreement to date.
Insourcing is a term used to describe a range of medical and clinical services which are deployed to use spare, out-of-hours capacity within a trust, alongside its existing provisions. The intention is to bolster service outputs and improve efficiency. Such services are typically provided by medical or clinical providers who can provide the specialist capabilities required to deliver an end-to-end service, including clinical governance and oversight.
Using such a service is one way trusts can cut the backlog while ensuring they retain capacity planning in-house.
Call-offs under the framework are made as sub-contracts to the NHS Standard Contract, with suppliers agreeing to comply with the contract’s general conditions and service conditions, as far as they are relevant to the provision of the services.
Suppliers have been shown to perform best when they have smooth handovers from the teams that are already in place – that way, staff provided by the suppliers feel like an extension of the existing team.
Joanne Barton, Senior Category Manager for HR & People at North of England Commercial Procurement Collaborative (NOE CPC), which is part of the NHS Workforce Alliance, said: “Our colleagues in trusts up and down the country are working tirelessly to reduce the backlogs exacerbated by the pandemic and this framework provides a route to suppliers that can support them in those efforts.
“The NHS Workforce Alliance is well known for its NHS England approved temporary staffing frameworks, but this particular framework is not for the supply of staff. Instead, it’s a framework that enables the sub-contracting of clinical services that are delivered by third party providers on trusts’ own sites.
“Since the launch of the framework we’ve seen considerable throughput in the areas of endoscopy and cardiology diagnostics and it’s satisfying to think that the framework is helping trusts to see more patients sooner, thus enabling earlier diagnoses and treatment.”