Business & Finance
Business and Finance
Business and Finance
Tue, August 25, 2009
Mon, August 24, 2009 Allocate Software plc: South Birmingham Community Health Selects Allocate Software's MAPS Healthroster Electronic Rostering Sol
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM--(Marketwire - Aug. 25, 2009) - Allocate Software plc (AIM:ALL), the leading provider of workforce optimisation and electronic rostering solutions to the UK healthcare market, is pleased to announce that South Birmingham Community Health has selected Allocate Software's MAPS Healthroster solution to support their 'Electronic Turnaround' initiative, with the intention of a Trust-wide roll out.
The Trust was chosen as one of only six PCTs across England to join a pilot programme to gain Foundation Trust status. Following a rigorous 'fitness for purpose' assessment, led by the NHS West Midlands Strategic Health Authority, in early 2009 the Trust is now formally entering the Department of Health's (DoH) application process for Foundation Trust status and has earned the freedom to determine the future direction of its services.
Key to choosing MAPS Healthroster is the proven reporting and auditing capability which will be utilised by the Trust to support the 'Electronic Turnaround' initiative, and to introduce cost improvement programmes through improved staff rostering.
Pat Hackett, Director of the Adults and Community Division within South Birmingham PCT's provider organisation South Birmingham Community Health, said: "Senior nursing staff have said that the MAPS Healthroster demonstration was easy to use and clinicians felt confident that the solution, if linked to ESR, would lead to the throwing away of paper based timesheets and more time could be diverted to other patient based activities. The staff will gain from the solution by having fairer shift allocations and the Trust can be confident that shifts will be WTD compliant. In addition, the solution provides the tools to ensure the right staff, with the relevant skills & competences are deployed, thus helping to ensure the Trust uses its qualified resources wisely whilst improving patient satisfaction."
Steve Hildrew, Project Manager Adults and Communities at South Birmingham Community Health, has been involved in the selection process from the beginning and has said: "Increasing financial pressures and the management of staff budget is paramount to achieving financial balance and ensuring the Trust can deliver good quality new and existing services. An electronic rostering and turnaround solution is an excellent tool to help deliver effective workforce and pay process management. We identified four key drivers for implementation of an electronic rostering and turnaround solution in the Provider Organisation:
- The amount of nursing time being spent rostering staff through paper systems, and the link from this process to the existing nursing bank management system
- The undetected inefficiencies implicit in a paper-rostering system in staff usage
- The amount of administration and management time being spent in the paper turnaround and timesheet process, and the current manual process into ESR
- The need to improve assurance against EWTD compliance for all staff groups
It was evident that Allocate Software had the professionalism, range of experience and quality of product necessary to address our four key drivers. We commissioned a 'Benefits Assessment' by Allocate Software that gave us significant evidence of the benefits of electronic rostering. We were then able to present a business case to the executive team demonstrating that MAPS Healthroster would deliver significant benefits to the Trust, both financial, and in quality of service.
The areas that took part in the assessment demonstrated a potential average saving of 1.55 WTE per area in better staff usage alone. Taken across all areas to be rostered in the Trust, this translates to a significant saving on annual spend. It identified notable potential savings in time to care, administration processes, and error correction in payment of enhancements that will be of significant benefit to the Trust. We will also make further savings around payroll efficiencies and governance. We hope that the link from the rosters to ESR will provide a seamless integration for payroll and the sickness and absence reporting interface will provide an extremely valuable tool to our HR team."
Steve Hildrew added: "The introduction of MAPS Healthroster will support the audit of complex care, bank and agency spend reduction targets and a number of significant cost improvement programmes. Executives will be able to see how each area is performing through the Roster Central management dashboard, and through pre-determined benchmarks we will be able to prove the savings achieved for each roster. We are all looking forward to working with the team from Allocate Software as these are exciting times for the Trust as we move towards Foundation Status."
Commenting on the announcement, Paul Scandrett Allocate Software's Director of Healthcare said, "We are delighted to have been selected by South Birmingham Community Health. It is especially pleasing given the rigorous procurement process and following the Trust's evaluation of our product and approach during our 'Benefits Assessment'. Whilst the 'Benefits Assessment' highlighted areas for improvement it also demonstrated the significant progress already made by the organisation, providing an excellent foundation for our work together. We look forward to working with one of the leading Provider Arms as they progress within the Foundation status framework."
About Allocate Software plc:
Allocate Software plc, formerly Manpower Software, is the leading workforce optimisation software applications provider for world-wide organisations with large, multi-skilled workforces. With over 18 years' experience, they ensure customers can match operational demands with workforce supply.
Using MAPS, Allocate Software's workforce optimisation software application, organisations can deploy the right people and right skills, to the right place at the right time. With Corporate headquarters in London, regional offices in the UK, USA, Australia and Malaysia, Allocate Software provide services and support to an international customer base across Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. Founded in 1991, Allocate Software plc is listed on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange ("ALL"). Please visit [ www.allocatesoftware.com ] for further information.
About South Birmingham Community Health:
South Birmingham Community Health (SBCH) provides high quality accessible and responsive community and specialist NHS services within South Birmingham and beyond. SBCH is part of NHS South Birmingham, and has been operating as an independent organisation within the Primary Care Trust structure since April 2008.
SBCH is in the process of becoming a separate NHS organisation and is set to be one of the first Community Foundation Trusts (CFT) in the country. A pilot group of community services organisations are working with the Department of Health to achieve CFT status.
