> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://help.resouris.com/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://help.resouris.com/reference/rate-card.md).

# Staffing rate card

**Throughput → Staffing rate card**

What an hour of clinical time costs to buy by each route *other than* a substantive post.

> **This is not what anyone earns.** It is the indicative cost of buying capacity. ESR remains authoritative for pay.

## The three routes

| Route                         | What it is                                       |
| ----------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------ |
| **The staff bank**            | your own people, additional hours, at bank rates |
| **A waiting-list initiative** | additional sessions paid at an agreed WLI rate   |
| **An agency**                 | bought in, including the agency's margin         |

One rate per band per route, effective-dated.

## Why this page exists

It is the denominator for [Training impact](/understand-your-capacity/capacity-economics-and-attainment.md).

That page recommends a competency to train and prices it — *train this band 6 in ECG for £4,367 and the department can staff 169 more sessions*. On its own that is a number without a scale. Against the rate card it becomes a comparison: £3.62 per additional patient seen, against £18.61 through the bank and £29.13 through an agency.

> ⓘ **Those figures are one measurement on one reference estate, kept because the shape of the comparison is the point.** Your own will differ, and they rest on assumed rates until you replace them — see the next section. Do not quote them.

The recommendation is only as trustworthy as the rates it is compared against, which is why the next section matters more than any other on this page.

## "Assumed" means we made it up

Every rate ReSouris seeds is flagged **assumed**, and the flag is shown wherever the rate is used — including on the training-impact comparison, which describes itself as illustrative until you replace them.

An assumed rate is derived from your cost model using published multipliers. It is a placeholder, not a figure agreed with your finance team.

> A confident wrong number is worse than a flagged estimate. A finance director who finds an unflagged assumption stops trusting the whole page, and they are right to.

Replacing a rate clears the flag for that line. Nothing else changes.

## Setting your own rates

**In the UI:** edit the rates on the page and set the date they apply from.

**From your finance system:** `PUT /v1/admin/rate-card`. Requires `admin.rate_card.write`, held by `tenant_admin`.

Either way, **rates are effective-dated and superseded, not overwritten**. Whatever a new rate replaces is closed the day before rather than deleted, so a business case you presented last quarter still reconstructs with the figures it was actually built on.

## Cost model, or rate card?

These two pages both hold money and are routinely mistaken for duplicates. They answer different questions.

|              | [Cost model](/how-it-works/cost-model.md) | Rate card                      |
| ------------ | ----------------------------------------- | ------------------------------ |
| **Question** | what does a substantive post cost us?     | what does buying an hour cost? |
| **Unit**     | annual, per band                          | hourly, per band per route     |
| **On-costs** | applied by the model                      | already inside the rate        |
| **Used by**  | training cost, comparator baselines       | the training-impact comparison |

The cost model prices the people you employ. The rate card prices the alternatives to employing them. Deleting either leaves the other unable to answer its half of the question.

## Related

* [Cost model](/how-it-works/cost-model.md)
* [Training impact and capacity economics](/understand-your-capacity/capacity-economics-and-attainment.md)
* [What is stopping us](/understand-your-capacity/find-the-constraint.md)


---

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