Reducing administrative burden: how workforce tech can free up 1000s of admin hours

The Challenge

Non-clinical staff within the NHS play a crucial role in the day-to-day running of the entire healthcare system, specifically when it comes to workforce planning and management. 

However, there is an overwhelming workload for already stretched administrators to manage, with a multitude of crucial tasks to juggle to ensure safe staffing levels are met. Manual, repetitive tasks can often fill the day, meaning administrators can be left feeling under pressure and unable to fully focus on other valuable priorities, such as staff wellbeing support and cost reduction initiatives.

In the 2023 NHS Long-Term Workforce Plan, it was reported that a significant portion of clinicians’ working time is spent on administrative tasks (70+%), and a considerable portion of administrative work in general practice can be either partly or fully automated (44%). With so many systems, functions and log-ins, our partner organisations previously felt like they didn’t have a solution to ensure workforce needs were met, including key administrative requirements. 

Via our integrated and fully interoperable workforce solution, we ensure our NHS partners have the tools they need to optimise their operations, empower their teams, and ultimately deliver exceptional patient care.

The Solution

At Patchwork, we work closely alongside 60+ organisations to truly understand the challenges faced by managers and their teams, especially when it comes to addressing administrative burnout. Through these partnerships, we strive to make those working in healthcare happier and healthier, from clinicians on the frontline to staff managing rotas and temporary staffing behind the scenes.

Our solution has been built with collaboration at its core. Patchwork’s technology enables a multitude of systems to work alongside one another, to fit each organisation’s unique ways of working, without disrupting the day-to-day. We achieve this in two key ways: automation and interoperability.

Automation

There is only so much time in the day, so with increased automation, administrators across our partner organisations are spending less time in front of a system performing manual, repetitive tasks. 

Co-designed with the NHS, our solution is purpose-built with many tools that automate crucial but timely tasks, freeing your internal teams up to focus on higher-value responsibilities, such as driving improvements through data and supporting clinician wellbeing.

Patchwork and York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust worked together to address the organisation’s high administrative burden through automating a range of staff bank processes. Together, we digitised timesheeting, payroll processing and pension calculations – three previously manual and resource-intensive processes. The Trust saw an immediate positive impact on their staff bank performance and 100 hours in admin time freed up each month. 

Our system’s automation provides 24/7 assurance of an organisation’s bank service, with no more unnecessary back-and-forth conversations over email. Both clinical and administrative staff are automatically notified of staff bank updates, such as approval requests and timesheet sign-offs, removing the hassle of manual communication and providing peace of mind to clinicians.

“Working with Patchwork has brought the Trust significant savings in both costs and time saving through the streamlining of processes.”

Amanda Clark, Medical Rostering Manager, York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Interoperability 

Workforce management within the NHS is complicated, and multiple systems that don’t work alongside each other only make things trickier. Uniting platforms to ensure an organisation has a functional workforce system in place is part of the philosophy we have built into our solution from day one.

Interoperability is more than just systems integrating. It is increased visibility, greater control, and providing the right information at the right time. Enabling workforce systems to speak to one another easily empowers teams to work and collaborate – seamlessly. NHS organisations can now make data-driven decisions which were previously impossible, with full visibility across multiple platforms. As a result, integrated systems not only enhance an organisation’s results but drastically improve non-clinical staff’s day-to-day experience too. 

What does this mean in practice? We have achieved full end-to-end interoperability with all major NHS workforce systems. Working closely with organisations, Patchwork has driven forward the NHSEI interoperability agenda; pioneering live seamless integrations between rostering, bank, payroll, vendor management and managed service systems. 

Administrative staff should not have to duplicate information into multiple systems, so we let the tech do the heavy lifting – giving organisations time back to focus on work that adds value to their workforce teams and patients.

At Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Patchwork has enabled downstream integration between our staff bank platform and +Us Contingent Workforce Management platform – the first fully interoperable solution of its kind nationally. Our tech supported the onboarding of 1200+ Agenda for Change workers to the staff bank in just four weeks and achieved an 85% average shift fill rate across the Trust’s workforce through our interoperable solution.

If you’d like to find out more about interoperability, check out our page here.