NHS absence management is an ongoing challenge for every Trust. With 6500 staff across 15 sites, North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust is focused on improving how it manages employee health and NHS absence management with the aid of Empactis.
It is rolling out the Empactis employee health management system in careful phases. The first phase of Absence Manager is now complete and the next phase is being evaluated.
In our latest NHS absence management case study we hear from David Allen, Assistant Director, People Support and others in the project team.
Among other factors, David cited data entry processes as one issue. He said “The data entry process was so long-winded that managers just didn’t have time. It was never easy to see who was off sick, how many, or when to stage them.”
The initial motivation was simple. “In real time, we don’t know how many people on any given day are on sickness absence. Nor how many are on stage 1 or stage 2 of the absence process” said Christine.
Supporting managers with absence administration
Imperatives such as ease of manager engagement have been priorities. This includes tools and guidance to encourage line managers to take the right actions at the right time – such as in managing the Returns to Work process.
There have been many learnings and discoveries along the way. For example, the fact that 10% of NCIC people weren’t in the right place on the ESR hierarchy. Empactis works seamlessly with ESR to orchestrate its powerful manager alerts and approvals capabilities, so this was an important enabler.
The pilot is currently expanding. The NCIC team can see that the full Empactis system will help to bridge some critical gaps, such as that between absence management and occupational health. It has the potential to transform OH referrals. Not to mention escaping some of the prevailing data silos. Empactis enables NCIC to connect employee data fully for the first time.
NCIC’s project team and the Empactis team are working closely to roll out and shape Absence Manager’s capabilities to the Trust’s NHS absence management needs.
Kayleigh Hayden, project manager for the Empactis implementation, said: “Having all three modules with case manager, health manager and absence manager is going to be a game changer for our organisation. Health and wellbeing is at the forefront after COVID, and the current climate is particularly challenging.”
NHS Trusts who want to read the full story of how NCIC is changing how it manages absence and connecting it closely to other aspects of employee health simply need to let us know.
Download the case study here or for more information email info@empactis.com
