NHS Professionals (NHSP)
Benefits of Our Transformation
Leveraging advanced analytics to transform healthcare workforce management
About NHSP
NHS Professionals (NHSP) is the largest provider of flexible workforce solutions to the NHS, with a membership exceeding 180,000 healthcare professionals and partnerships across more than 50 NHS Trusts. As the organisation faced mounting pressures from rising healthcare demand, an ageing population, and workforce shortages, it recognised that traditional staffing approaches could no longer deliver sustainable efficiency. NHSP partnered with Beyond to accelerate its journey toward becoming a data-driven organisation capable of anticipating workforce needs, improving resource utilisation, and reducing dependency on costly external agencies.
Results That
Matter
£156M
Annual Revenue Growth
30%
Staff Availability
25%
Agency Cost Reduction
20%
Shift Fill Rates
The Opportunity
The NHS faces systemic workforce challenges — from supply shortages driven by immigration policy and attrition, to escalating agency costs and operational inefficiencies caused by fragmented data systems. NHSP needed to unlock the value in its data to forecast demand more accurately, improve the efficiency of staff allocation, and support better decision-making at scale. The goal was not just to fix the immediate resourcing issues but to embed analytics into every level of workforce planning, enabling a resilient and adaptive system fit for the future.
Solutions Delivered
Beyond worked with NHSP across several phases, evolving from an initial strategy engagement to a long-term managed data partnership.
- Developed a robust data strategy, governance model, and operating framework to standardise data processes and improve trust in reporting across NHSP’s ecosystem.
Designed an advanced forecasting solution that predicts workforce demand and supply fluctuations, reducing reliance on agency staff and enabling Trusts to plan shifts with precision.
Built a modern data lakehouse architecture on Microsoft Azure, leveraging MS Fabric and Databricks to centralise and secure data while improving access, integration, and analytical power.
Implemented analytical models to measure the effectiveness of pay and engagement incentives, allowing NHSP to optimise timing and impact across Trusts.
Transitioned Beyond into a fully embedded managed service — providing NHSP with dedicated data engineering, AI, and BI capability to ensure continued insight delivery and operational support.
Results & Impact
The transformation delivered measurable, system-wide improvements:
- £156 million projected annual revenue growth through optimised workforce utilisation.
- 3 million incremental hours added per month, increasing healthcare capacity and reducing reliance on agency staff.
- 10% rise in member engagement, contributing to an estimated £84 million in annual savings.
Operational performance also improved dramatically, with 73% of data requests fulfilled within a week — 5.5 times faster than before — and more than 3,600 unique requests delivered to over 500 stakeholders. NHSP’s leadership gained real-time visibility into workforce patterns, empowering them to make faster, evidence-based decisions.
Lesson Learned
NHSP’s journey illustrates the importance of embedding data-driven thinking into the heart of workforce management.
- Invest Early in Data Infrastructure: Early and continuous investment in data platforms is essential to avoid technical debt and unlock long-term efficiency.
- Deep Collaboration Drives Success: The strongest results come from partnership and co-creation — aligning strategy with day-to-day operational needs.
- Data-Driven Culture is Transformational: True change requires building data literacy, leadership commitment, and consistent decision-making discipline.
- Governance and Quality are Non-Negotiable: Reliable, well-governed data is the foundation for trusted insight and lasting organisational transformation.
Through this partnership, NHSP and Beyond proved that data-driven workforce management can transform healthcare delivery — increasing capacity, reducing cost, and ultimately improving patient care.
Our partnership with Beyond has been instrumental in transforming our organisation’s data management and analytics capabilities.
Dave Callow, Chief Information Officer, NHSP
