Blog

If you think that your healthcare team requires additional substantive resource, then it probably does. But that alone isn’t going to be enough to secure financial backing from the board. In this post, we’ll help you recognise the signs to look out for before it’s too late and explain how workforce management technology, like RotaMaster can ...

In theory, it’s quite simple to sit down with an Excel spreadsheet and plan rotas a couple of weeks in advance. You’ll no doubt hit some stumbling blocks with annual leave and sickness thrown in the mix, but for a week or two – you should be just fine. However, over time, this manual effort will leave your staff feeling less engaged and could ...

Six months have passed since we shared the news that extended access services would be delivered by PCNs from April 2022. In that time, NHSE deferred the introduction yet again, announcing that the changes would now come into effect in October 2022. Whilst this was not the first delay, it is widely accepted to have been the last – with PCNs ...

You’ll have heard the adage; proper planning prevents poor performance, and it’s never truer than in the world of staff management. In this post, we’ll run through the real-life cost of poor planning and how organisations who invest in staff scheduling software are able to take back control and benefit from better financial outcomes. Manual ...

There has been so much change to working arrangements over the last 18 months and it looks like in many cases, things may have changed for the long term. Hybrid working – splitting your time between the office and home – may become the norm in many organisations in future including roles which were once considered unsuitable for homeworking. Many ...

In January 2021, NHS England and NHS Improvement deferred the introduction of new PCN service requirements until at least October 2021 - recognising the significant challenges experienced by these teams in the last 18 months. Last month, NHS England further updated PCNs on the revised plans through to 2023, setting out gradual measures to ...

Homewell Practice are a Havant-based GP practice. Their aims are to prevent ill health, improve the wellbeing of patients, work with local commissioning groups and other integrated health teams to provide services that improve local health outcomes and reduce admissions to secondary care.   The challenge Historically, rota management at ...

Even before COVID-19 hit, the NHS was experiencing a staffing crisis and the pandemic has only emphasised this and highlighted what a huge strain our NHS staff work under.  It was reported earlier this year that there is a shortage of 84,000 staff with 38,000 of these vacancies being for nurses and 2500 for GPs.  It shouldn’t really come as a ...

Staffing can be a challenge at the best of times. Striking the right balance of staff in a healthcare setting is imperative in meeting the needs of patients - overstaffing becomes expensive, an inefficient use of resources and understaffing can lead to poor patient care and disgruntled staff. We know it’s not easy.   The last 18 months have ...

When you’re managing a wide variety of staff who all work different hours and shift patterns, rota planning can be hugely time-consuming and difficult. Particularly within the health and care sectors, your rota needs to be fully staffed to ensure that you can provide the best possible care available and that your business is running as smoothly ...

If the pandemic has taught us anything in the healthcare sector it's that ‘online’ systems and processes, including e-rostering, have been instrumental in redeploying staff, reporting absences and managing working hours.  Whenever we’re exhibiting our staff planning software at events, we often hear healthcare professionals say the same thing ...

Some new research out this month (15 April 2021) by the Living Wage Foundation, says that almost 40% of shift workers are given less than a week’s notice of their working hours, with a small percentage getting less than a day’s notice. They also point out that it seems to be more prevalent with low paid workers on variable hours, which presents ...