NHS trust to save £1.5m thanks to nursing system
North Tees and Hartlepool NHS trust uses IT to organise nursing staff and become more efficient
A north-east England NHS trust is using a rostering system to reduce the money it spends on nursing cover.
The North Tees and Hartlepool trust has been using the system for four months, and saved just over £500,000 so far.
By the end of the financial year the trust is likely to save £1.5m, says North Tees director of nursing, Professor Aidan Mullan.
'The system allows ward sisters to organise and move nurses to where they are most needed in a hospital at any given time,' he said.
'That means we can spend a lot less on bank nursing cover, which has really had a positive impact on our budget.'
Before the rostering software was brought in the wards were essentially isolated from one another, with nurses unable to be shifted around to where they were needed.
The MAPS Healthroster system also means senior nurses have to spend less time on paperwork, says Mullan.
'Ward managers and sisters have struggled to manage this kind of thing in the past, but now they have the facility to do things quickly,' he said.
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