Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust has saved £500,000 through implementing eRostering software from Smart, a vendor of workforce management platforms.

The Trust has been using the software to improve its roster planning and the management of its 1,300 nursing and ancillary staff. “The key benefit is that we now use a ‘transparent’ system that brings together all considerations: timesheet, rostering and absences so they can be managed within one integrated, up-to-date and current system that makes contracted hours more visible,” said Brenda Blackett, project manager of eRostering at the Trust.

The software has enabled the Trust to improve its visibility into unused hours and their reallocation. Before the smart system was introduced the Trust was not able to track whether staff were working their contracted hours.

Implementation of the Smart software has resulted in a ROI just a year after rollout as well as more accurate timesheets and correct payroll details.

The Trust said that improved visibility into the working patterns of its staff has been one of the major benefits. The Trust can now see when staff take sick leave, and whether there is any pattern to their absence, such as a night shift or long working hours.

Staff can also use the system to check the hours they have worked, request shift changes and check that information is correct before it is sent to payroll. The Trust hopes that this will reduce pay errors and queries in the future.

The Trust will also be provided with an electronic record of who was working at any particular time, which will be useful in case of an incident.

The system can also ensure that staff are only able to work shifts that are appropriate to their skills and that the correct number of workers are assigned to each shift. “If four people want to work a ‘band 6’ shift but you only require two, the system will only accept two requests for the shift. It does this using a fair-play policy that looks at shifts already worked or requested and then allocates on this basis. Previously this was a manual process which wasn’t auditable,” said Blackett.

The Trust us expecting to expand the use of Smart’s eRostering software to other departments within the organisation.