Manchester based scheduling company Malinko Software has been named Supplier of the Year at the NHS in The North Excellence in Supply Awards 2018.
The awards recognise the work of businesses, third sector bodies and the NHS in working together to provide great patient care. They are organised by NHS North West Procurement Development and Northern Customer Board, which helps NHS organisations to procure for value as well as best standards of care.
The Awards were sponsored by the Innovation Agency; Health Innovation Manchester; and Yorkshire and Humber Academic Health Science Network.
Malinko has been solving organisational scheduling problems since 2010, including working with Landscape UK to keep gritting lorries on the roads during snow alerts.
In 2017 Malinko, in partnership with Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust and part funded by Innovate UK, applied their expertise to the challenge of caseload scheduling and managing a distributed workforce in NHS community nursing.
Salford Royal was operating a manual system for caseload allocation and booking visits to patients, which was labour intensive. Working with Salford Royal, Malinko introduced an automated and intelligent system which improved the process, keeping mileage and travel times for nurses to a minimum and giving nurses more time to care.
As a result, Salford Royal’s community nursing service saw a 20 per cent increase in the average number of patients seen in a morning by the team, and a 10 per cent reduction in travel time and mileage.
Andrew Threlfall, Founder Malinko Software, said: “We feel we have uncovered a significant problem that the NHS will want to solve – how NHS organisations can ‘intelligently’ schedule, matching capacity with demand. Our plan is to leverage the success and share Salford’s outcomes and results across the NHS.”
Malinko is also one of four companies selected as part of the Greater Manchester Digital Health Accelerator, run by Health Innovation Manchester. The scheme, which launched in September this year, gives companies support, speciality training and opportunities to meet experts and showcase their products with NHS decision-makers. The Greater Manchester Digital Health Accelerator is one of five schemes aiming to rapidly increase the adoption of digital health products in the NHS.
Awards judge Mick Guymer of NHS Northern Customer Board for Procurement, said: “Malinko’s solution makes greater and more effective use of health service resources in the community, thus increasing the volume and level of care delivery to the patient – a real positive change in a relative Cinderella service of the NHS.”
Chief Executive of event sponsors Health Innovation Manchester Ben Bridgewater said: “The collaborations with external partners showcased by the awards are having a huge impact in improving patient care and on achieving better value and efficiency. Huge congratulations to all the winners and very worthy finalists.”
