The NHS (National Health Service) continues to experience significant pressures on patient flow and capacity following the pandemic, adding to the growing backlog of patients. To help plan and mitigate further disruption, NHS organisations are developing a programme in September to help towards the winter pressures. These are often known as winter resilience plans.  

These plans will often review capacity vs expected demand, emergency response services and the financial clarity around these areas to help organisations to plan around them.  

The NHS (National Health Service) continues to experience significant pressures on patient flow and capacity following the pandemic, adding to the growing backlog of patients. To help plan and mitigate further disruption, NHS organisations are developing a programme in September to help towards the winter pressures. These are often known as winter resilience plans.  

These plans will often review capacity vs expected demand, emergency response services and the financial clarity around these areas to help organisations to plan around them.  

So what is available to support the winter resilience plans? 

What is Allocate Transport Marketplace? 

Allocate Transport Marketplace is a FREE-to-use system that provides the NHS and wider public sector organisations access to a plethora of compliant transport providers at the touch of a button, via an auditable system that has been proven to save money. Sounds too good to be true? We often hear that, but it really isn’t.

Is Allocate Transport Marketplace really free?  

Yes, the system is free of charge to all NHS organisations. There are no hidden costs, we charge a small amount to the transport service providers who complete the journeys. 

So, if you charge the transport providers, how can we be sure they won’t raise their prices to cover the cost?  

 Using a system like Allocate Transport Marketplace provides you with access to a greater pool of suppliers, creating healthy competition. This also ensures a more sustainable approach to transport, providing you with access to reliable providers who will price competitively, giving you a chance to benchmark prices for your requirements. This ultimately drives cost down, whilst offering a compliant service.  

Using the system, you can run your own competitions, which means having control over setting price caps to get the best provider for the best price. This process has proven successful for many Trusts, and they have experienced notable differences in cost savings.  

Our Trust already uses a local taxi company, why can’t we continue using them?  

Relying on one transport provider can limit capacity to fill requirements and reduces competitiveness, ultimately resulting in increased costs. You can encourage your local taxi company to join the Allocate Transport Marketplace and by doing so you will know that they have been fully audited and the necessary safety checks have been completed, to ensure they are compliant. This will help you to enable better patient safety and experience. You will also benefit from a wider pool of providers, ensuring a competitive marketplace.  

How do we ensure providers are compliant?  

All providers within Allocate Transport Marketplace are required to pass a range of stringent governance tests before they are approved to work with commissioners. Once approved, they are then subjected to our dynamic governance solutions to ensure that they maintain and update all associated information live and in real-time. Our team here at RLDatix continuously manages the provider community.  

As part of the onboarding process, all transport suppliers must complete our own application process. This includes checks to confirm the appropriate insurance certificates, policies and procedures are in place for the required services. Records are kept in the system, rechecked and flagged for traceability and auditability purposes.  

Do the transport contracts need to last between 5-7 years to be economic?  

Not true. Our team regularly procures contracts from 3 and 6 months to 2 years with all the main providers. By using the Allocate Transport Marketplace you will have many transport providers at your fingertips, ensuring competitive pricing, nationwide geographical coverage, excellent reliability (providers are monitored on this) and an end-to-end audit trail.