NHS trust launches £60m software procurement to improve staffing efficiency

The Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is launching a £60m procurement in the hope that it can better manage staffing with the magic of software. The proposed framework is set to be open to other NHS organisations, and offer "a range of tools and solutions to deliver measurable improvements in all areas of …

[alain williams]

IR35

I have friends who do temporary work in the NHS, eg a few months pregnancy cover. They were one of the first to be hit by IR35; things like not being able to reclaim travel and accommodation when working at a hospital too far from home for a daily commute. The result is that they are more pickey at what gigs they will accept and are moving away from the NHS.

I suppose that the real problem is that these temporary workers are not donors to the Tory party.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: IR35

You are completely correct - once everyone realises that you can't claim accommodation and if its not a normal commute its not economically viable, any company that wants contractors but is outside of where their contractors live is stuffed.

IR35 isnt the problem though, being wrongly classed as inside IR35 is the problem. It won't be long before contractors take legal action against companies deliberately providing wrong determinations as they think it protects them. If there is no mutuality of obligation (as per pretty much every long term contract), then you are outside of IR35.

Giving an incorrect determination makes the company liable. Once this is tested this whole shebang will quietly fall apart.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: IR35

Careful, you'll trigger Jake with a title like that!!

[Rich 2]

60 million quid

These sums continue to amaze me. I think most people would really have to go out of their way to spunk 60 big ones on a project like this. If the sum was 6 million I would still struggle.

One of the biggest problems with the NHS is procurement - the people doing the procuring (and I don’t mean the people at the coal face - I mean government ministers and NHS trust management) are basically incompetent and have no interest in getting value for money. It’s why they end up paying many times over the odds for basic equipment and (especially) consumables.

I think this is a classic example. No wonder the country is bankrupt (well apart from that virus thing that’s going round and cutting ourselves off from Europe, but they are very recent fuck-ups)

[John Sturdy]

6 million would probably be enough to do a good job of it, possibly world-wide

You should in principle be able to find 100 competent programmers, who will happily work from home so no office costs, to work on this for a year for 60k each (or for a faster more efficient team, maybe 60 people at 100k each, which might make recruitment easier), probably starting with some of the existing open source hospital software systems and integrating them, and from then on it should mostly be a matter of maintenance and tweaking it for local use. ("in principle", because recruitment actually seems quite slow these days)

But somehow I suspect that projects like this don't aim to employ a sensible-sized team of competent people, or reduce the need for future manglement opportunities.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: 6 million would probably be enough to do a good job of it, possibly world-wide

You’ve forgotten to add in the layers of management to look after the programmers. Head of program, program managers, project managers, project coordinators. Suddenly you’ve got more support staff than actual workers and your project is doomed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: 6 million would probably be enough to do a good job of it, possibly world-wide

Don't forget to add all the Assistant Managers to that list!

[John Sturdy]

Re: 6 million would probably be enough to do a good job of it, possibly world-wide

Those layers are what I was thinking of when I wrote that such projects "don't aim to employ a sensible-sized team of competent people".

A small focused support team can be helpful to offload the BS tasks from the techies, but keep it small and focused.

[Mattjimf]

It's good to talk

Having worked for three different Trusts, I still don't really get why people are keen to spend money on these things, rather than having a conversation to see how other Trusts are doing it and learning from them.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It's good to talk

my thoughts exactly, although i'd possibly be out of a job if they did

[hoola]

Re: It's good to talk

Because that means talking to other people and then the inevitable admissions that the system they paid millions for is crap. Bodies like the NHS are seen as cash cows by those responding to the procurement because there is so little oversight. If it all goes wrong, they still get paid AND get paid even more to fix it.

The NHS (and other public bodies, MOD anyone?) don't help themselves by constantly changing the requirements as different people at the top stick their oar in, often leaving long before the solution is delivered by which time nobody has a clue what feature is needed for. This leads the suppliers to over-quote so that they have fat in the book to cover all the changes.

[John Sturdy]

At least one part of it sounds rather sinister

Does "access to actionable workforce intelligence" mean "facilities for investigating whistleblowing"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: At least one part of it sounds rather sinister

Maybe this has some relevance

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/nov/11/nurse-lucy-letby-charged-with-murder-over-chester-hospital-baby-deaths

but my guess is that management would do better to walk out their office and speak to people rather than look at a software dashboard if they want to know what is going on.

My local NHS hospital also had a rogue employee a few years back , suspected of killing older folk in that case. It is surprising how long these things can go undetected or not acted on.

[Prst. V.Jeltz]

A computer program to manage staffing eh?

You know , I bet that something like that cold be used in other sectors of industry as well!

Maybe the Chester NHS Trust could pioneer and trademark this revolutionary idea , then license it out to the rest of the workforce , and thereby revolutionise the way industry as a whole works making it far more efficient whilst pulling money into NHS coffers ensuring a free NHS utopia for all!

/sarcasm

On the other hand perhaps this has already been done , possibly even by other NHS Trusts and the're just going to spunk 60m up the wall reinventing the wheel ,badly.

[Deimos]

Hey my famous fact is back

Twenty or so years ago I invented a completely made up statistic in an attempt to look clever during a meeting.

It’s nice to see it still being used in articles “the NHS is the world’s biggest employer apart from Indian railways” is complete baubles. There are at least 20 bigger employers with several in China being much bigger.

I always wanted to leave a legacy but didn’t expect it to be a fib.