NHS resource Case Study

NHS re:source

Contract Start Date: 1st April 2010

NHS re:source is a strategic hub delivering quality improvements and innovation for the NHS across the East Midlands. Due to their collaborative approach, the hub has demonstrated savings of over £60M since its establishment in 2006, benefited by all NHS Trusts throughout the East Midlands.

Background

The East Midlands encompasses the counties of Derbyshire, Leicestershire (including Rutland), Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire and Nottinghamshire, has a population of over 4.5 million and is largely made up of white British people who speak English as their first language. However, 18 NHS Trusts in the East Midlands have a combined requirement of over 35,000 face-to-face interpreter requests, 40,000 telephone interpreting minutes and 20,000 British Sign Language interpreter requests per year. Their requirements range from GP appointments to surgical procedures in both rural and urban locations.
The Trusts who participated in the tender selection process are as follows:

Derbyshire County PCT
Derby City PCT
Derbyshire Mental Health
Derby Hospitals
Leicestershire County and Rutland PCT
Leicester City PCT
Leicestershire Partnership
University Hospitals of Leicester
Lincolnshire Partnership
United Lincolnshire Hospitals
Northamptonshire PCT
Northampton General Hospitals
Kettering General Hospitals
Bassetlaw PCT
Nottinghamshire County PCT
Nottinghamshire Healthcare
Nottingham City PCT
Nottingham University Hospitals

The strategic hub were looking for one supplier to act as the Master Vendor to provide consistency of service, transparency of spend and standardisation of management information available region-wide. Also, by adopting a collaborative approach, their aim was to negotiate more competitive pricing levelsregion expressed an interest in utlising the services of one provider.

Previously the 18 Trusts had been using several suppliers for Interpreting and Translation services with no official contracts and had little standardised information on the spend/usage across the region. NHS re:source wanted to promote one supplier for all services, have one point of contact and receive regular management information. They wanted to reduce expenditure without compromising the quality of service offered. It was also vitally important to access an offical contract.

Our Offering

Pearl offered one rate across the region regardless of location, language or nature of appointment. This means that all Trusts with both small and large requirements have access to:

Competitive rates
Standardised, comprehensive and bespoke Management Information
Qualified and enhanced CRB checked interpreters
Dedicated Account Management
Sharing of information and cost saving solutions for the whole region

Pearl also offered a Managed Contract whereby they use not only their own freelancers, but local, smaller agencies. This was a particularly attractive option to several of the Trusts who wanted to continue using their local providers via a nationally recognised contract. The other benefits of a managed contract are:

Continued access to a large pool of interpreters leading to 100% fulfilment rates
Promotion of one supplier for all services
Pearl do the hard work for you, calling round all agencies to confirm a booking
Keeping local money in the local community
Standardised Management Information

Pearl has worked with every Trust individually in promoting the service by:

sending out welcome packs with FAQ’s, user guides and assistance posters
offering each trust unlimited number of training and awareness sessions in order to make sure staff use the service correctly and efficiently
offering further training on cost cutting techniques when ordering language services
conducting customer service calls to each service user to ensure that they had everything they required and that they were comfortable accessing the service
preparing information for their intranet, website, newsletters and other communication
conducting hospital walkarounds in order to speak with users and answer their questions face to face

NHS re:source is provided with Management Information on a monthly basis and a more detailed quarterly report. Types of information provided include language requested, by surgery, individual etc. Number of hours/minutes of interpreting per booking and any cancellations. This has proved vital for the strategic hub to evaluate the cost savings for the region as a whole.

The Account Manager at Pearl has conducted regular review meetings with the appointed contact within the hub to gain feedback and to ensure that the contract has been well received and is being accessed correctly.

This collaborative approach to procuring Translation and Interpreting services is often praised by other Government departments for its innovation and cost saving solutions.

If you would like to know more about how we can help with your complex language service requirements, or would like to learn how a Managed Contract can work for your organisation, please call us on +44 (0)20 7253 7700, or email us at info@pearllinguistics.com