Allocate platform helps track live NHS absences to help during Covid-19

A platform which tracks live absences in the NHS has been expanded to help the health service during the Covid-19 pandemic.  

Allocate’s HealthRoster, which already records the absence of over one million health and care workers as part of its core rostering functionality, is the largest source of daily operational absence data across the NHS.

NHS organisations across the UK have added over 57,000 new staff to the platform after the company opened up free absence tracking to help provide better visibility of absences and to support automated centralised daily absence reporting to NHS England.

Allocate was asked to support NHS England and NHS trusts by developing automated centralised daily reporting on absence. This was created in days and since late March NHS organisations absence data has been shared directly with NHS England and NHS Improvement.

Nick Wilson, CEO, Allocate said, “Opening up absence reporting free of charge across all staff groups is one of a number of vital measures we have taken to support our customers. We have also implemented our e-rostering software for all staff groups across five Nightingale Hospitals in a matter of days, we have provided free training to over 220 NHS staff, as well as hundreds of health and care staff in Sweden and Australia.

“We are now working with our customers to help health and care organisations navigate the longer-term impact of Covid-19 on staff and how they manage, care for and deploy their people.”

The ability to add additional staff free of charge for six months enables NHS organisations to record absence for all staff groups.

Since opening up the system seven weeks ago 12% of the additional 57,000 staff have recorded that they are unavailable for work, providing local health services with much needed timely information on staff absence.