ACCESS London & Patchwork Health: meeting critical care transfer demand across London

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Commissioned by NHSE London, ACCESS London is a Critical Care Transfer and Retrieval service. The initiative is hosted by Barts Health and delivered by London Operational Delivery Networks, in collaboration with London Ambulance Service NHS Trust.

Launched in April 2023, the service provides a single point of access for adult critical care transfers across London, ensuring a fully equipped mobile intensive care team is available for patients requiring inter-facility transfers.

ACCESS London employs staff via bank and short fixed-term contracts from across London. The team includes Consultants, Transfer Doctors, Transfer Practitioners and office staff. In this evolving and often pressured environment, ACCESS London required an integrated rostering and temporary staffing system that was flexible, effective and easy-to-use, enabling the service to combine all these workgroups and workflows into one unified system.

The team partnered with Patchwork Health as their technology provider, choosing the solution based on its agility, user-friendly functionality and ability to meet the service’s unique requirements. Since launch, ACCESS London has managed both substantive and temporary workers based on fluctuating demand on one easy-to-use system, helping teams maintain full visibility and control of staffing activities.

We spoke with Ian Carasco, ACCESS Consultant, Informatics & Performance Lead, to reflect on the first year of this partnership.

What are the key benefits and results of the partnership so far?

“Patchwork is continuously growing and listening to the needs and ideas we present to them – they are constantly evolving, making life easier on a day-to-day basis. Patchwork is an approachable company and the team listens and learns from us.”

What product features and functionality have helped you and your teams the most in your roles?

“The key improvement has been worker patterns, where we can now build patterns for all of our staff groups and run rotas for more than one year, minimising the admin burden. We are also looking forward to using their new functionalities, which I believe will be a game-changer, like self-rostering and shift swaps.”

How have you found working with the Patchwork team?

“The team is spectacular, from the bank team helping us set up and onboard more than 200 staff members in a few weeks, to the rota team that has supported us with the development of our rotas, patterns, and soon self-rostering. Whenever we encountered an error, they were very approachable and helped us find a solution quickly. They are keen to sit down and listen to the ACCESS team to generate ideas to make certain aspects of the software and even develop new functionalities. All in all, the journey so far has been very positive, and I can only see a long partnership ahead of us.”

ACCESS London’s partnership with Patchwork Health highlights the impact of collaboration and thoughtful innovation in addressing workforce challenges. Together, we’ve simplified processes, supported staff, and laid the groundwork for future success across critical care services in London.