Apps

Locum’s Nest launches collaborative digital staff bank for 8 trusts

An online platform to provide locum doctors with access to shifts across 8 NHS Trusts has been launched, called The Digital Collaborative Bank.

Using the platform from Locum’s Nest, it connects doctors to eight NHS trusts; Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS FT, Dorset County Hospital NHS FT, Salisbury NHS FT, Hampshire Hospitals NHS FT, Royal Surrey Hospital NHS FT, Ashford & St Peter’s Hospitals NHS FT, North Middlesex University Hospital NHS and Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.  These Trusts span 150 miles around the UK with over 4,500 doctors covering all grades and specialties.

The platform aims to create, for the first time, one national staffing pool across the whole of the NHS.

Nicholas Andreou, Co-Founder of Locum’s Nest The power of this collaboration enables Trusts across the service to pool their individual staff banks, thereby creating a much larger pool of potential staff and revolutionising staffing nationwide.”

“We initially set up Locum’s Nest for locums and Trusts to ensure more shifts were filled, more often and more efficiently this led to time saved, money saved, and most importantly, outcomes improved for patients. We soon realised that having a national pool of temporary staff was the logical next step in making even more shifts even more visible and removing practical barriers to staff moving between organisations.”

“The Digital Collaborative Bank goes over and above our work with the app, allowing any Trust and any doctor across the UK to be part of a universal pool.”

Suzanne Rankin, Chief Executive, Ashford and St Peter’s Hospitals NHS FT, said “We are a founding partner of the South of England Collaborative Bank which has transformed the way we are able to fill our locum medical shifts and enable doctors to work bank shifts across the collaborative without working via an agency.”

“Enabling my colleagues to work in other NHS Trusts gives me a sense of pride and unity with the rest of the NHS, there is a big opportunity here for us all at The Digital Collaborative Bank. It is a transparent way of working and absolutely the way forward. It improves harmonisation of rates, transparency and better controls across the group. If you’re not using it, you should.”

Alfredo Thompson, Workforce Programmes Director, North Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust “It has grown our medical staff bank incredibly over the last 12 months. From the doctors’ perspective, it’s so much easier for them, having eliminated a lot of time dealing with paperwork. They’re also more engaged with the Trust and can manage their shifts quickly and easily.  The other benefit is that doctors actually want to use it – which makes it so much easier to engage with them.”