Make agency healthcare workers pay for their own compliance, de Poel Clarity proposes
3 March 2014
Individual NHS healthcare agency workers could become responsible for paying for their own compliance management under a potentially game-changing proposal from healthcare managed service provider de Poel Clarity.
Mon, 3 Mar, 2014 | By DeeDee Doke
Individual NHS healthcare agency workers could become responsible for paying for their own compliance management under a potentially game-changing proposal from healthcare managed service provider de Poel Clarity.
The proposal is intended to cut compliance costs for the financially beleaguered health service’s Trusts, which reportedly pay more than £500 per year for each agency worker employed on a temporary basis.
In the UK, the cost of compliance for non-permanent staff is currently the responsibility of either the employer or the supplying recruitment agency. Research commissioned by de Poel Clarity contends that this costs the NHS more than £250m a year and represents over 10% of the overall cost of the annual agency spend across the health service.
Speaking to Recruiter, Andrew Preston, managing director of de Poel Clarity, points out that healthcare workers currently must have their compliance verified by each organisation for which they work.
“It takes cost and time to do it, there are multiple opportunities for error, there is not one single record or single source to go to, to obtain the necessary information,” he says.
As a result, Preston says de Poel Clarity is “looking to introduce, and trying to develop at the moment, a pilot project with an NHS Trust to look at… making the single use of compliance data” endorsed and accepted by individual NHS trusts and also acceptable to and endorsed by various agencies.
A pilot project with the unnamed Trust could be underway at the end of July, he says.
“What would happen is, the individual doctors or nurses would then be accountable and responsible for their own compliance, and therefore the costs associated with that would not be borne by the NHS themselves but could be by the individual healthcare provider or the individual themselves – which is consistent with other professions, for example, accountants and lawyers,” Preston says.
Asked what the cost to the individual would be, Preston says: “We’re in the initial phase of trying to work out what it would cost. We expect it to be a nominal registration fee, and that’s purely for the verification and administrative process.”
The current cost of compliance per candidate, according to what he says was “lots of published data”, range from £800 to £2.5k to make a candidate compliant. “We wouldn’t be looking at anything near that; we’re talking a very small fractional cost in the tens of pounds, not hundreds of pounds,” he says.
Preston cited a recent report from the King’s Fund think-tank, which contends that one in five NHS hospitals are set to go into deficit by the end of the financial year.
The proposal is intended to cut compliance costs for the financially beleaguered health service’s Trusts, which reportedly pay more than £500 per year for each agency worker employed on a temporary basis.
In the UK, the cost of compliance for non-permanent staff is currently the responsibility of either the employer or the supplying recruitment agency. Research commissioned by de Poel Clarity contends that this costs the NHS more than £250m a year and represents over 10% of the overall cost of the annual agency spend across the health service.
Speaking to Recruiter, Andrew Preston, managing director of de Poel Clarity, points out that healthcare workers currently must have their compliance verified by each organisation for which they work.
“It takes cost and time to do it, there are multiple opportunities for error, there is not one single record or single source to go to, to obtain the necessary information,” he says.
As a result, Preston says de Poel Clarity is “looking to introduce, and trying to develop at the moment, a pilot project with an NHS Trust to look at… making the single use of compliance data” endorsed and accepted by individual NHS trusts and also acceptable to and endorsed by various agencies.
A pilot project with the unnamed Trust could be underway at the end of July, he says.
“What would happen is, the individual doctors or nurses would then be accountable and responsible for their own compliance, and therefore the costs associated with that would not be borne by the NHS themselves but could be by the individual healthcare provider or the individual themselves – which is consistent with other professions, for example, accountants and lawyers,” Preston says.
Asked what the cost to the individual would be, Preston says: “We’re in the initial phase of trying to work out what it would cost. We expect it to be a nominal registration fee, and that’s purely for the verification and administrative process.”
The current cost of compliance per candidate, according to what he says was “lots of published data”, range from £800 to £2.5k to make a candidate compliant. “We wouldn’t be looking at anything near that; we’re talking a very small fractional cost in the tens of pounds, not hundreds of pounds,” he says.
Preston cited a recent report from the King’s Fund think-tank, which contends that one in five NHS hospitals are set to go into deficit by the end of the financial year.
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