We are thrilled to announce that the South East Temporary Staffing Collaborative has won the award for Data Driven Transformation of the Year at the 2024 HSJ Awards – the annual initiative which shares success stories across the health and social care sector, creating a collaborative platform to help inspire and shape the future of the NHS.
The South East Temporary Staffing Collaborative, were named winners at the prestigious awards evening in London on 21 November, with the award was presented to the team by Dara Ó Briain, the television presenter and comedian.
The HSJ judging panel recognised that by "working together across the South East, 27 acute, community and mental health trusts have come together to transform the way temporary staffing is managed across the region. Utilising the power of data, the trusts have shared their intelligence through digital platforms to provide visibility and enhance decision making, reducing annual spend on agency workers by £125m (based on the previous year) ... By moving from “competition to collaboration”, trusts now secure best value through digitally enabled transformation and trusted transparency." They also commended the scalability and complexity of the work, noting that the team demonstrated real passion to make a difference.
Julian Emms, Chief Executive at Berkshire Healthcare and the Collaborative's Executive Sponsor, stated that " It is such an honour to have won this award – and to have stood out amongst some serious competition in our category. As the largest provider collaborative in the country, this award is recognition of the hard work which trusts have led on, working closely with a central team, to deliver improved patient safety, increased clinical quality and enhanced value for money."
Caroline Corrigan, Chief People Officer at NHS Frimley and Programme SRO, added: "The partnership approach has involved working closely with trusts from across the region, NHS South, Central and West Commissioning Support Unit, NHS England, the procurement frameworks and other partners to deliver significant reductions in agency spend, off-framework supply and increased compliance with NHSE agency caps. The drive and passion of colleagues and partners across the NHS family to deliver on shared objectives has been truly phenomenal."
Parjinder Basra, Programme Director for the South East Temporary Staffing Collaborative said "This award recognises the whole region coming together to solve problems. Key to the success has been the development of a Power BI tool which analyses and shares the temporary staffing data of our Collaborative trusts, increasing transparency across the region and enabling intelligence driven decision-making.”
Since the programme’s inception in 2022/23, they have achieved remarkable outcomes:
- Off-framework usage has been reduced from 8.8% to just 0.6%% (as of M6 24/25).
- Total agency savings of £224 million have been achieved over a two-year period (M1 2022/23 to M12 2023/24), with a further £56 million reduction YTD (M6) 24/25.
- Cap compliance has steadily improved, rising from 33% (M1 2022/23) to 53% (M6 24/25), driven by the Agenda for Change agency project.
We would therefore like to extend our congratulations to the South East Temporary Staffing Collaborative who are very worthy winners of Data Driven Transformation of the Year.