Frequently asked FOI questions

Digitisation of Patient Records

Further information on this can be found here.

 

Electronic Care System

Further information on this can be found here.

 

Business Continuity Plans, Data Security, Cyber Security, ICT risks, Clud Solutions and ICB budget

Further information on this can be found here.

 

Mobile Phone Information and Cyber Security 

Further information on this can be found  here.

Bank Staff, Agency Staff and International Recruitment

International Recruitment

• We welcomed 10 recruits from New Zealand in April 2019.
• The Trust also ran a further recruitment drive from New Zealand during 2019, and a further 12 started with us in January 2020.

Bank staff

• The Trust uses internal bank staff (i.e. staff employed directly by the Trust on a bank contract)
• We do not use third party bank suppliers
• In the last 12 months our average number of staff on bank contracts was a headcount of 728 staff
• The proportion of shifts covered by bank staff was an average of 12% in the 2020-21 financial year.
• Bank staff are rostered using GRS, the same platform we use to roster all staff
• We do not use any additional rostering software
• Bank Spend – please see below:

Bank Staff

Financial Year	Notes
2018/19
2019/20
2020/21	Administrative and Clerical - this category includes roles within our Clinical Hubs.

 

Agency

• As with bank, South Western Ambulance Service very rarely uses temporary agency staff from third party suppliers
• If we require extra resourcing we generally offer overtime to staff already employed by the Trust as well as advertising available shifts to our internal bank staff

Financial Year	Notes
2018/19
2019/20
2020/21	Administrative and Clerical  - this category includes roles within our Clinical Hubs.

• In terms of ambulance ‘frontline’ provision we sometimes use third party providers such as Bristol Ambulance. This contract involves the joint provision of staff and vehicles - we do not tend to employ agency paramedics separately. Additional details are available under ‘Private Ambulance Use’ Frequently Asked FOIs.
• We do not use Direct Engagement
• We do not have an MV supplier   
• For non-clinical staff the Trust uses a framework; https://www.crowncommercial.gov.uk/agreements/RM6160

 

Physical Assaults on Staff

Further information can be found here.

 

Verbal Assaults on Staff

Further information can be found here.

 

Staff Absence

Further information can be found here.

 

Staff Numbers and Roles

Further information can be found here.

 

Gender pay reporting

Introduction

Under the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017, we are legally required to comply with the Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information). The gender pay gap is a high level snapshot of pay within an organisation and shows the difference in the average pay between all men and women in a workforce.

Gender Pay Gap Reporting is not to be confused with, ‘equal pay’ which is a more specific legal concept that A gender pay gap does not equate to the existence of an equal pay problem, albeit a gender pay gap may be a trigger for further investigation about the reasons why the gap exists.

The requirements of these regulations involve carrying out six calculations that show the difference between the average earnings of men and women in our organisation; however it does not involve publishing individual employee’s data.  These six calculations are;

• Mean gender pay gap;
• Median gender pay gap;
• Mean bonus gender pay gap;
• Median bonus gender pay gap;
• Proportion of males and females receiving a bonus payment;
• Proportion of males and females in each pay quartile.

Workforce detail

South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust currently employs 4861 members of staff on permanent and fixed term contracts.  A further 712 individuals on zero hours bank contracts.  The gender split for our organisation is 53.60% male and 46.40% female. The details supplied in the report include all permanent, fixed term contract staff and employee employed on zero hours bank contracts.   

Salary data used for this report is based on employee pay on the snapshot date of 31 March 2021.

 

Average & Median Hourly Rate

Gender	Avg. Hourly Rate	Median Hourly Rate
Male	15.95	15.65
Female	14.99	14.42
Difference	0.96	1.23
Pay Gap %	6.06	7.88

 

Q1 = Low, Q4 = High

Quartile Report

Quartile	Female	Male	Female %	Male %
1	607	649	48.33	51.67
2	645	614	51.23	48.77
3	529	536	49.67	50.33
4	514	938	35.40	64.60

 

Bonus Pay

At South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust we also pay incentive payments to staff to cover vacant shifts which are deemed crucial for operational delivery.  As such payment schemes are counted as bonus schemes in terms of the gender pay reporting.

Salary data used for this report is based on employee bonus pay between 1 April 2020 and 31 March 2021. (A negative amount shows the amount of pay for women is higher than that of their male colleagues).

 

Pay reporting

Gender	Employees Paid Bonus	Total Relevant Employees	%
Male	2018	2962	68.13%
Female	1704	2485	68.57%

 

 

Pay reporting

Gender	Avg. Pay	Median Pay
Male	1,603.42	1000
Female	1,453.20	959.16
Difference	150.22	40.84
Pay Gap %	9.37	4.08

 

Comparison to Previous Year

Comparison to Previous Year

	2021		2020
Gender	Avg. Hourly Rate	Median Hourly Rate	Avg. Hourly Rate	Median Hourly Rate
Male	15.95	15.65	15.23	15.34
Female	14.99	14.42	14.26	13.14
Difference	0.96	1.23	0.97	2.23
Pay Gap %	6.06	7.88	6.37	14.53

 

Comparison to Previous Year

	2021				2020
Quartile	Female	Male	Female %	Male %	Female	Male	Female %	Male %
1	607	649	48.33	51.67	579	630	47.89	52.11
2	645	614	51.23	48.77	659	552	54.42	45.58
3	529	536	49.67	50.33	511	699	42.23	57.77
4	514	938	35.40	64.60	486	725	40.13	59.87

The report shows that our gender pay gap has reduced this year from 6.37% to 6.06% and the median hourly rate has reduced from 14.53% to 7.88%. 

Actions

We continued to review our ongoing initiatives within the organisation that are specifically focused to address any areas of gender inequality:

• Review of flexible working practices;
• Explicitly offering all roles on a job share basis;
• Engagement with females in operations to highlight potential and perceived barriers to their progression;
• Reviewing a specific female leadership and mentoring programme; and
• Introduction of a Gender Equality Network Group.

The Trust is also working across all areas of diversity in collaboration with the Equality Steering Group to increase representation across the protected characteristics, and ensure that their needs are reviewed and discussed on an official platform.