Bedford claims savings using rostering software

Bedford Hospitals NHS Trust has predicted it could save up to £500,000 after replacing its paper-based staff rostering system for its nurses and midwives with new software.

The MAPS Healthroster ward rostering system, supplied by Manpower Software, has been installed in the trust. The savings are based on the company’s own Rostering Assessment (RA), and include a reduction costs from using agency staff, better allocation of personnel and time spent by staff arranging the original paper-based roster.

Paul Scandrett, Manpower Software’s director of NHS, said: "With trusts under severe financial pressure, cutting bank and agency spend is a top priority. As with our other NHS customers, Bedford has proved that Healthroster not only achieves hard cost savings but also improves service delivery and management control."

Scandrett added that acute trusts already running their rostering software were being assessed to achieve similar or greater savings on paper-based systems. Trusts had also calculated that they achieved from 40-60% of cost savings on agency staff.

Julie Halliday, director of nursing at Bedford and one of the leaders of the project at the trust said: "We chose Healthroster because it was the only product which covered the whole nursing and midwifery workforce process, from demand and establishment management, through rostering to temportary staff management. In addition, Healthroster showed its ability to meet the complex demands of the NHS nurse rostering process."

Manpower Software says that their Healthroster system balances the needs of the ward with that of the needs of staff, and can plan both day-by-day routines and staffing further in the future. It can also be scaled to single wards, groups of wards or a whole workforce.

As well as nurses and midwives, the software can also be used for the different staffing requirements for junior doctors and allied health professionals, and can also help to ensure that a group of staff is on duty with the correct combination of skills.

The Healthroster software is one module of the MAPS suite, which includes other tools aimed at NHS human resources such as workforce planning and establishment control.

Manpower Software also supplies systems to several other NHS trusts and also the UK Defence Medical Services and NATO.