It’s been really interesting work so far and there’s still a lot to be done….so I’d better get cracking!

Now the project has cleared this second hurdle I thought I’d take the opportunity to fill you in on what I’m doing.  As you know from my previous post, NHS Employers was going through a process to procure a Management Supplier, a company who we can partner with going forward to deliver our vision and support the work that we are doing.  Since the RFI submissions came in we worked through an intense period of short listing, engagement and cultural fit sessions before making a recommendation for the Management Supplier to the board of Trustees.  Our team has also been working on other exciting side projects (when we could squeeze them in!) such as the provision of electronic CRB checking and consideration of other technology based solutions for the NHS HR community.

At the Trustees’ Board they approved the move for NHS Employers to become a membership organisation by offering subscriptions for NHS organisations to access additional products and services from April 2010. What this means is that in addition to the provision of services to all NHS Trusts under the Department of Health (DH) contract, future members will now have access to new benefits that will help them as employers to deliver added value to the NHS and patients.

As part of the subscription services members will have access to the e-CRB solution that I’ve been working on with Atlantic Data Ltd, this will allow Trusts to save money by reducing not only the time spent sending forms to candidates, completing them and signing them off but also the actual processing time for the check itself (the electronic forms get into the system 48hours ahead of postal forms for a start!), this in turn will reduce costs of interim staff as the new joiner will be able to start work sooner.  Subscribed members will also be able to utilise a new state-of-the-art recruitment management tool enabling them to manage the back office processing of application forms, short listing & interviewing in a more modern manner than they are currently able to.

So over the coming months I’ll be continuing to work on the development of this membership model as we investigate other useful tools and products that we can offer to Trusts to enable them to support their staff and patients in a cost effective and efficient manner while also working with Capita (who were approved by the Trustees as the preferred bidder at this stage).

I have a feeling I’ll be kept quite busy but I really think it’s a good concept that will benefit the HR community within the NHS Trusts and enable them to support the key function if the NHS, patient care.  If I can find time between work and snowboarding then I’ll try and blog about the progress a bit more regularly.  We’re also starting to use Twitter within the organisation, so if you want to follow more work related Tweets then follow me here.