Here’s my cunning plan, which I believe could save the NHS at
least £45 million pounds a year if not a great deal more.
Now, I know that £45 million may seem like chicken feed
compared to the total NHS bill but at the same time my scheme would also make
life easier for Hospital managers, pay staff more and make life more convenient
and human for everybody.
How can this be possible? – just a bit of good old fashioned
co-operation. As in a ‘co-operative’, a tried and tested alternative to private
profit-making provision.
A recent Daily Telegraph article calculated that the total
bill for temporary nurses is set to reach £450 million by the end of this
financial year - a 21 per cent rise on 2011/12.
Providing agency nurses is a very profitable business and the
paper quoted two examples;
“Thornbury Nursing
Services is one of the largest agencies in the UK. The firm pays specialist
nurses up to £93.25 an hour to work bank holidays - which is £1,119 for a
12-hour shift.”
The paper found that some Hospital Trusts were paying between £1500 to £1700 for that
kind of specialist agency nurse on a Bank Holiday, which reflects the
commission charged, which they quoted as at least 20% but to me seems like 40%
or more.
It went on;
“In its
marketing materials, potential recruits are told that they can earn twice as
much as a full-time NHS nurse if they can take on shifts at short notice.
The firm
was founded by former nurse Moira Sloss and her husband John in 1983, and
became part of Independent Clinical Services Limited which they sold for £45
million and is now owned by US private equity giant Blackstone, which owns a
string of businesses, including Hilton Hotels and tourist attractions such as
Madame Tussauds.
Other major
companies include Medacs Healthcare, which advertises 300 shifts for nurses
every day, and declared an operating profit of £5.9 million on an annual
turnover of £172 million in its latest accounts.”
That’s a lot of money, lost to the NHS and these are just two
of many similar agencies. It’s money that is pointlessly lost too – these
agencies aren’t even convenient to use.
Most agency nurses already work for the NHS and do extra
shifts to earn more money.
They would like to travel as short a distance as possible.
The NHS Hospitals are paying through the nose for staff.
Solution?
A group of hospital trusts (I reckon 3 would be good, 2 would
do) create a co-operative agency between themselves and agree to only use the
services of their co-op, no more expensive agencies.
The co-op would only use the services of nurses who already
work for the member hospitals, which reduces travel time and guarantees work
for those who want it.
The co-op operates by supplying agency nurses to its member
hospitals, at a profit. No change there. Charges would vary according to
urgency, skills, times, bank holidays etc.
You split the profits;
The member hospitals, share half the profits made at the end
of the year, divided up according to how much use each member hospital made of
the service.
The nurses would also be members of the co-op and would
receive an annual bonus paid from the other half of the profits, calculated as
a % on top of what they earned during the year.
So, the nurses get more work, for more money, more local to
where they work with a reward for loyalty. The hospitals get coverage at lower
cost and with more control. In time it’s likely that the co-op would be able to
recruit more hospitals but would probably want to keep the service relatively
local or divide catchment areas up into regions, to keep it local.
It’s not rocket science and there are costs – for starters it
needs to be run on business lines rather than civil service lines. But, all it
needs is an office, some phones and an intranet website. You could start it off
with a card index and a phone.
Figures;
£450 million a year at a minimum 20% commission –That’s at
least £90 million.
10% extra for the staff = £45 million to share out.
10% saved for the hospitals = £45 million to share out.
Then the extra saved by not having fees inflated, not forcing
hospitals into last minute bookings, not exaggerating costs. What does that add
up to?
The only ones to lose out are the venture capitalists and rip
off agencies who are currently cleaning up.
That reminds me, I must lift the lid on contract cleaning one
day soon.
Neil Harris
(a don’t stop till you drop production)
Home; helpmesortoutthenhs.blogspot.com
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