NHS England have become aware of temporary staffing agencies approaching trusts and offering ‘insourcing’ solutions to meet their routine temporary staffing demands and to support with additional pressures such as, reducing their elective waiting lists.
When used appropriately, insourcing is an opportunity to maximise productivity and efficiency, for example, supporting the achievement of the 18-week referral to treatment target. Compliant insourcing can utilise spare or new, out-of-hours capacity to ensure that more patients can be treated.
When sourcing providers for insourcing, it is mandatory to use compliant suppliers, on an insourcing framework agreement.
Insourcing suppliers should offer services to trusts at or below the unit prices published as part of the NHS Payment. This enables trusts to continue providing care to patients, reducing patient waiting lists whilst also saving trust money in the long term.
Date: 22 July