Patients and staff at the Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS FT will benefit from a new £200,000 digital shift scheduling system aimed at reducing time for staff. The investment will mean that staff can spend more quality time looking after patients, through reducing scheduling administration.
The integrated scheduling system will use staff rostering and skills to assign the right person to each patient at a suitable time and place. Some other benefits for staff include increasing the efficiency of visits and reducing cancellations/missed visits. There are also expected to be fewer absences and less staff working over their contracted hours.
Accurate information about allocated work will also help maximise the productivity, so that work can be re-allocated when urgent situations arise (e.g. when staff report in sick or the escalation level rises), and to allocate unplanned work as it arises throughout the day
Helen Turner, Head of Nursing for the community and therapy division, said: “These types of systems make our allocation of patient visits much easier and enables more time with our patients.
“This will be really positive to nurses and other healthcare staff because it provides accurate information about allocated work, reduces the time nurses spend allocating visits, supports agile working and increases visibility of capacity and demand.
“The scheduling system will optimise and coordinate visits for all community staff and will reduce the amount of time senior nursing staff spend allocating visits.
“The division will have visibility of capacity and demand on a daily basis that is real time, allowing for confident re-allocation of visits and unplanned activity. Linking the scheduling system with electronic rostering will enable measurement of utilisation, productivity and efficiency.”
The system is funded by NHS England and NHS Improvement.
