Four Seasons Health Care Group: Taking control of care staffing costs

The challenge

Four Seasons had been facing a significant challenge in managing agency use across its group of 46 care homes. With over 250 different agencies on their books, managing staffing was becoming increasingly complex and costly. The team wanted to take back control of their temporary staffing agencies, gain greater transparency across the group and ultimately greater control of costs.

The result has been a saving of over £2.1 million on agency staffing across the group.

The Florence solution

Four Seasons adopted a wide range of Florence’s contingent workforce management tools across their network – Temporary Staffing, Agency Manager and Bank Manager.  

By using Florence’s Bank Manager tool alongside Agency Manager, the group can now easily offer shifts first to bank or permanent staff, and finally to their tiered agencies. They’ve chosen to include Florence’s own Temporary Staffing pool in their tiering structure. This has resulted in greater cost control and reduced agency spending.

Why Florence?

Anne-Marie, Flexibank Manager at Four Seasons, explained why they chose Florence:

“We already had a long-standing relationship with Florence, using their Temporary Staffing tool to fill empty shifts. What stood out to us was not only the ease of use of their technology, but their commitment to support and integrity. I trust Florence 100%. It’s clear that Florence isn’t just about making money—they truly care about improving care.”

Favourite Florence tools 

1. Agency Manager – controlling agency usage, driving greater cost control and transparency. 
2. Bank Manager – reducing agency costs and increasing shift fill rate, by sending empty shifts to bank or internal staff first. 
3. Temporary Staffing – Access to a pool of quality temporary staff “that we trust will not put us at risk of compliance issues”. 

The results

The impact is being felt across the Four Seasons network:

Building a better Bank

• 500 staff members recruited to the internal bank
• >80% Year on Year retention of members of the Staff Bank

Reduced costs

• £2.1m of savings delivered by Agency avoidance
  
• 469,000+ hours filled by Bank Staff over 2024

Streamlined processes

• 100% of shifts filled by panel agencies within agreed rate card
• 85% of Agency shifts filled by Tier 1 suppliers
• Reduction of staffing agencies from over 250 to just 50, providing greater control over staffing.
• Improved transparency over compliance standards –  Florence’s tools and processes have given the group confidence back that all temporary care professionals and agencies are fully vetted and compliant.

“I couldn’t recommend Florence more highly–for us they are a trusted partner in solving our workforce challenges. I’m sure their system will continue to help us provide the best possible care while managing temporary staffing and costs effectively.”

Anne-Marie

Flexibank Manager, Four Seasons Healthcare Group