1. Workforce Performance Report May 2018
Tim Boylin
Director of Human Resources

2. Temporary Staffing Spend
Total temporary staffing spend decreased by £637K to £3.33m, 16.83% of payroll, the lowest since November. This is likely to be due to winter pressures coming to an end and decreased rates of annual leave in April as the new annual leave year has commenced. The Trust is planning to review the annual leave policy in 2018/19 to look at ways of ensuring annual leave is managed more evenly across the year. Bank spend (excluding GPs) fell by £101k, this is mainly due to a decrease of £64K in Healthcare Assistants and £87K in Nursing staff. Spend still remains at its second highest.
This Month: 16.83%
£3.33m
Last Month: 19.40%
£3.96m
Last Year: 12.43%
£2.25m

3. Temporary Staffing Spend
Agency spend decreased by £507k to £1.99m in April, 10.12% of payroll. The greatest decrease of £218k was in the Admin & Clerical staffing group followed by £144k in Allied Health Professionals and £104k in Medical & Dental. The only staffing group which showed a rise in spend was Healthcare Assistants which was £52k.
Agency spend has decreased in all Directorates, most notably in the Adults directorate where is fell by £190k, followed by Corporate which fell by £123k. Agency spend was % above the ceiling set by NHSI. NHSI Agency rule overrides increased by 22% to 1,647 shifts in the 4 weeks of April. This increase in overrides can mainly be seen in the C&YP Directorate where an increase of over 200 overrides was seen. 55% of temporary staffing shifts booked through the WFMS were to cover vacancies.

4. HCA Agency Reduction
In March 43 Pure Flexible offers were made with 27 workers able to start. 25 Substantive Flexible Worker assignments have been processed. Since the Work for us challenge started in September 222 new Pure Flexible Workers have started and 447 substantive Flexible Worker contracts have been issued. The Trust has committed to switching from using Agency staff to Flexible Workers for all non registered nursing roles on 14 May. This covers all inpatient units.
A project group has been established to overview the change which is closely monitoring risk. A contingency plan is in place should the group be concerned about any risk to patient safety.
Extensive work is being undertaken to persuade Agency Workers to move across to Staffing Solutions, the Trusts' internal bank.
The main area of concern is the Highfield unit followed by Abingdon Ward 1, Amber and Didcot.
HCA temporary staffing spend grew by 25K in April, Agency spend increased by 81k and bank reduced by 56K. It is thought that some of this was due to individuals working on their flexible contract whilst taking annual leave on their substantive in March, the end of the annual leave year.

5. Roster Publication
Since the Autumn the Trust has been working to improve rostering for units on the Workforce Management System specifically :
Ensuring rosters are robustly reviewed prior to publication
Publishing rosters 6 weeks in advance.
Sending shifts that cannot be filled by substantive workers to bank as soon as possible.
Cancelling unrequired duties.
Through improvement in these areas it is anticipated that staff, patient and carers satisfaction and wellbeing will increase and efficiency savings will be made as:
A robust roster review process will support the effective management of unavailability and contracted hours whilst ensuring a safe skill mix and fair rostering.
Publishing rosters 6 weeks in advance will support staff to plan their work and home life and enable shifts that cannot be filled to be sent to bank earlier reducing agency use. Staff are unable to view their duties through Employee on Line (EOL) if rosters are not published.
Evidence suggests that sending shifts to bank earlier reduces agency spend by up to 50%.
Cancelling unrequired duties means that we can accurately report on risks associated with required duties that we are unable to fill.
38 out of the 107 rosters were published 6 weeks prior to being worked for rosters due to commence 21 May , 16 more than in the previous month. 11 remain unpublished at time of writing, 7 days after due. The black line denotes when work commenced on the improvement.

6. Lead Time Shifts sent to Bank
The graph below shows lead time for all duties sent to bank regardless of reason. The earlier duties are sent the more likely that are to be filled by Flexible Workers rather than agency and within price cap.
The number of duties sent bank more than 30 days before they are due to be worked increased from 54% to 61% in March which is positive. The number of duties sent at 7 days or less (which is more likely to be due to sickness or adverse weather) continued to fall. The earlier shifts are sent the easier it is to fill shifts through the bank and on framework and within price cap.
A further target is to send all duties to bank that are needed because of a vacancy at least 6 weeks before they are due to be worked as the requirement should be known at this point shifts with the reason for being sent to bank stated as vacancy were sent less than 6 week before they were due to be worked.

7. Sickness
Sickness has decreased slightly to stand at 4.06% compared to 4.15% last month. The decrease has been experienced across all directorates, except Children and Young Peoples which has seen a consistent rise over the last 12 months. The Trust decrease has been driven by the end of the winter Cold and flu outbreak and a reduction in Stress sickness.
Target: 3.50%
This Month: 4.06%
Last Month: 4.15%
Last Year: 3.46%

8. Vacancy
The Vacancy rate has decreased to 11.6% in April from 13.8% in March and marks a reduction following the end-of-financial-year spike.
Target: 9.0%
This Month: 11.6%
Last Month: 13.8%
Last Year: 8.00%

9. Turnover
The Turnover figure has decreased in April to stand at 14.57%. The decrease has been driven by a long term decline over the last six months in the Older and Children and Young Peoples directorates. The Adults directorates has displayed a significant rise over the last two months due to high turnover in Psychological Therapies and LDS Pathways.
Target: 12.00%
This Month: 14.57%
Last Month: 14.92%
Last Year: 14.62%

10. WRES

11. WRES