Flexible staff pools, Women's Health Hubs
£25m funding has been made available to support the roll out of Women’s Health Hubs across the UK. Every ICS has been asked to have at least one hub set up and delivering two core services by July, and one hub delivering all core services by December 2024.
Here are some considerations when choosing the partner to help deploy and staff your hubs.
1. Does your provider have the capacity and experience to launch successful services quickly?
With the July deadline fast approaching an efficient set up is critical. Choosing the right partner can not only make sure your service is up and running on time, but also make the process as stress-free as possible – taking the pressure off your team.
With Lantum, hubs can be set up in as little as 7 days thanks to an extensive national footprint, with 16 ICBs across the country, and 1 in 2 GP practices in the UK already using the platform.
Lantum has become a trusted partner in the seamless implementation of NHS directives – from responding to the fast mobilisation of COVID-19 vaccine hubs to setting up over 770 Enhanced Access hubs since 2022.
2. Will you have visibility of your staff across multiple sites and be able to easily communicate rota changes?
With Women’s Health Hubs likely to span multiple venues, as well as virtual and in-person, having a real-time view of your region’s staff and rotas is vital to ensure a smooth-running and resilient service.
On the Lantum platform, managers can easily roster staff across multiple sites from one central account, with a real-time system of record. This ensures complete clarity for everyone, and gives visibility of any problems or shortages earlier, so they can be addressed.
3. Can your provider help you fill shifts and manage last-minute changes cost-effectively?
Workforce pressures are cited as one of the biggest barriers to delivery for Women’s Health Hubs, so, it’s worth considering how a provider can help you fill empty shifts at short notice, and the time and cost implications involved.
In most cases, rostering or staff pool providers won’t be able to help with this, and your team will need to source locums yourself or pay agency fees. However, Lantum has spent the last decade building the largest UK bank of verified clinicians, giving you access to 30,000 GPs who can step into your shifts when you need them. The Lantum platform also has unique notification and booking features that support you in handling last-minute, unavoidable changes.
The power of this bank means that one-third of all hub sessions on Lantum are matched with a clinician within 48 hours of posting the shift. It also reduces staffing spend by up to 28% compared to using an agency.
"Lantum has been an invaluable partner in helping us deliver a successful Enhanced Access service - they have been truly collaborative and helped ensure we consistently fill 100% of our shifts with very little effort from our internal team."
- Dr Farhan Rabbani, Sutton GP Services
4. Will your provider take on the compliance requirements for sharing staff?
To enable staff to work beyond organisational boundaries, you need to have a clear way of tracking workforce credentials, effectively creating a clinical passport for staff working across your services.
Lantum completes compliance checks for all staff you onboard onto the platform, and documents are stored on each staff member’s Lantum profile for easy reference. The platform also automatically notifies you when any documents need renewing, so you can keep everything up-to-date, and everyone ready to work.
5. Will your provider help you reduce the administrative burden of using locum GPs?
Given workforce pressures, most hubs will be relying on locum GPs to help fill rotas, and this will come with a significant administrative load.
It’s important that any provider you work with has tools and systems to help you efficiently manage logistics. With Lantum, pension forms, payment and booking admin are all automated, meaning that working with locums is as easy as working with salaried staff.
6. Does your provider also support your other priorities like workforce satisfaction and retention?
With the right provider, your new services can be an opportunity to deliver a new way of working that supports workforce retention in line with the NHS Longterm Workforce Plan.
Recent evidence suggests that specialisation and portfolio careers can improve retention and morale of staff, and with the Lantum app, practices are empowered to offer staff more flexibility over their shifts and availability so they can build a schedule that works for them. Lantum also has a next-day payment service for locum GPs, helping boost satisfaction by getting paid faster for their work.
“I've been using Lantum for around 4 years now. I enjoy the flexibility it gives me with my working pattern along with the ability to keep track of how much I'm being paid and who has settled invoices.”
- Dr Junaid Campwala, Locum GP
Lantum is the most established provider of enhanced services across the country, helping ICNs, PCNs and GP FEDS to set up and staff over 1000 hubs, and to respond with speed, certainty and ease to NHSE policy.
To find out more about what Lantum can offer as your partner in delivering Women’s Health Hubs, get in touch.
Want to learn in more detail how Lantum's workforce management solutions can support your healthcare organisation? Request a demo below and a member of our team will be in touch:
