Business applications software provider, COA Solutions (www.coasolutions.com), today announces a partnership with workforce management specialist, SMART (www.smart-workforce.com). This partnership enables COA Solutions to provide its National Health Service (NHS) customers with SMART’s workforce management solutions.
SMART’s solutions, which comprise staff bank management, electronic rostering and time and attendance software, link to the NHS-wide human resource (HR) and payroll system, ESR, helping acute trusts, primary care trusts and mental health trusts to maximise the potential and efficiency of their staff. SMART’s solutions release highly skilled nurses from administration duties back to patient care whilst reducing absenteeism, improving staff retention and cutting labour costs by up to five per cent.
With figures from Think-tank Reform highlighting that NHS staff take 50 per cent more time off sick than workers in the private sector*, NHS organisations are being urged to find ways to reduce high absence levels. SMART’s workforce planning systems are key to reducing absenteeism as they promote a more flexible, fairer and healthier way of working, cutting staff absence in relation to disengagement, inflexible working patterns and illness.
Using SMART’s staff bank management system, NHS organisations can better manage how and when they use their staff, especially expensive temporary staff thereby reducing costs. With the electronic rostering and time and attendance solutions, staff can look at their own working hours, request shifts and arrange a shift swap via the Internet. With staff having direct access to view all pay related information prior to the payroll run, this ensures that pay queries are reduced. The electronic rostering provides a fairer system for staff whilst ensuring that the staff who are rostered to work have the appropriate skill set to meet patient care demands.
By feeding data from SMART’s time and attendance solution and the ESR system into COA Solutions’ HR business intelligence solution, People Analytics, NHS organisations are provided with a complementary, powerful analytics tool so that they can further understand the root causes of absenteeism and implement measures to best tackle this issue. People Analytics combined with SMART also provides NHS organisations with the insight to more effectively tackle high staff turnover, cut recruitment costs and optimise training costs.
Peter Leigh, Health Sector Manager from COA Solutions, says, “This partnership with SMART provides our NHS customers with a comprehensive suite of workforce management solutions tailored to meet their challenging HR needs. As well as helping to reduce absenteeism which is costing the NHS £3 billion every year, SMART’s solutions have a range of other important cost, efficiency and regulatory benefits, helping NHS organisations to meet tough Government targets.”
*Daily Mail, 30 March 2009.
About COA Solutions www.coasolutions.com
COA Solutions is the UK's leading supplier of integrated business management and information systems to public, private and not-for-profit organisations in the service sector. COA Solutions prides itself on getting close to its customers by understanding their businesses and responding to their business needs.
COA Solutions' award-winning Smart Business Suite combines core financial management, procurement, human resource and payroll systems, integrated with a range of collaborative, document management and business intelligence solutions. COA Solutions also provides managed service and bureau service options. Its systems and services extend the value and effectiveness of the finance, HR and payroll departments across the organisation and enable managers in the business to monitor, analyse and continually improve corporate performance.
COA Solutions has more than 500 experienced and professional staff supporting and servicing over 4,000 clients across the UK service sector including Companies House, Newcastle City Council, WHSmith, Royal Bank of Scotland, Aer Lingus, National Express Group, DFS, RSPB and Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Trust.
About SMART www.smart-workforce.com
A leading provider of solutions for workforce management for over twenty years, SMART has helped some of the world's most successful companies maximise the performance, productivity and value of their people. In turn, this has enabled its customers to achieve a sustainable reduction in people costs of up to 10%.
Delivering a complete solution, from time and attendance to workforce scheduling and from development to installation to customer support, SMART’s customers enjoy a more flexible working environment and an improved work-life balance for their greatest asset – their workforce.
SMART in Healthcare www.smart-rostering.co.uk
SMART’s solutions deliver fully integrated workforce management across all nursing, medical, administrative and support services in the NHS. In 2001, SMART was selected by the NHS and McKesson as the best of breed provider of eRostering and Time and Attendance solutions for the National ESR programme, the HR and payroll software used NHS-wide. As a result SMART is uniquely positioned to provide proven secure, reliable and fully automated ESR integration.
Established in 1986, 550 organisations worldwide benefit from SMART’s solutions and services. The SMART NHS installed base is growing rapidly, with now 28 trusts contracted, including Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust, Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust and Dudley Group of Hospitals NHS Trust.
COA Solutions Contacts:
Liz Ebbrell, COA Solutions
Liz.ebbrell@coasolutions.com
+44 (0)1625 856505 or 07917 634 705
Ben Carey, COA Solutions
Ben.carey@coasolutions.com
+44(0)1625 856505
