Primary Care, Lantum news, GP practice managers, NHS long term plan
As we await the publication of the 10 Year Health Plan and updated Workforce Plan this year, the current focus on retention, flexibility, Primary Care and community health services feels as relevant as ever – as morale remains low and pressures high.
Making progress in these areas can be slow, in part because outdated rostering technology restricts the access to and movement of staff.
As a partner to 50% of all practices in the UK, we’ve seen how Lantum empowers organisations to offer their workforce flexibility, and to deploy them effectively to improve access to services.
Here’s how Lantum could help your practice deliver on NHS priorities.
Improving access to GP services
Operational Planning Guidance for 24/25 sets out the ambition to “make it easier for people to access community and Primary Care services”.
One key factor in this is capacity. Many shifts are left unfilled due to long-term shortages or short-term illnesses. But with better access to GPs, flexible staff pools and more efficient temporary staffing processes, this can be changed.
Lantum gives a practice access not only to their own pool of local, flexible staff, but also to a network of 30,000 vetted locums as a fall-back for when their known GPs aren’t available. 45% of Practice Managers on Lantum use it to fill last-minute gaps caused by illness, and 73% of shifts receive an application within two hours — helping boost the resilience of services.
Improving continuity of care
Filling empty shifts is one thing, but the Longterm Workforce Plan also puts emphasis on improving the patient experience. For many, this means delivering continuity of care, which “has been linked to higher satisfaction among both patients and GPs”.
Lantum's features give organisations greater control over which locums fill their shifts – so they can maximise repeat bookings and deliver the best standard of care for patients. For example, a Practice Manager can use the Request a Doctor feature to book a preferred locum for multiple sessions, or use the Priority Access feature to give their most-trusted locums the opportunity to fill shifts first. By building a ‘little black book’ of trusted locums on Lantum, practices gain control over their staffing while ensuring continuity of care — all with the flexibility to adapt as patient needs change.
As well as improving continuity of care, these features improve efficiency for practice management and give them all the benefits of working with flexible staff — making sure sessions are filled quickly with minimal administrative work, and that booked locums are familiar with the relevant care pathways.
Delivering more care in the community
To reduce pressure on hospitals, the Longterm Workforce Plan sets out the need to deliver community services through “the development of more flexible and integrated teams.”
With outdated systems, organisations often lack visibility about the skillsets they have available – and the background work involved in setting up a new integrated service can take weeks if not months.
With Lantum, though, a practice, PCN or ICB can bring all multi-disciplinary staff together on one platform, and use it as the foundation from which to quickly set up new services in as little as 7 days. Staff can be scheduled across multiple sites seamlessly – with universal compliance and payments – while managers maintain visibility of who is working where. This is why many choose to use Lantum to quickly launch services like Rugby Health Ltd’s Enhanced Access hubs.
Improving retention by enable flexible working
Two of the main focuses of the Longterm Workforce Plan are of course to retain the workforce and reform ways of working. We see the two as going hand-in-hand – one of the key drivers of attrition is work/life balance, so by ‘reforming’ working practices to be more flexible, staff satisfaction and retention will be boosted. Again, with the right technology, this can be simple. Lantum empowers practices to offer true flexibility to staff, for example for:
- GPs pursuing a portfolio career
- Recent leavers who want to return to the NHS
- Staff who want to work additional hours
Staff can see and apply for work across different organisations, at times that suit them, and organisations can instantly update staff of bookings through automatic notifications, increasing transparency and collaboration.
To find out more about how Lantum can support your practice or organisation in line with the NHS Longterm Workforce Plan, get in touch with one of our Lantum Activation Experts who will give you a personalised walkthrough of the platform for your practice.
