Two branches, one question
Your agency has grown to a couple of branches, each with its own bookers and its own mix of trusts and care homes. At the monthly meeting you ask a simple question: what share of the shifts we were asked for did we fill? One branch says most of them. The other thinks it is lower, but nobody records requests they did not fill.
You have booking figures, but not the other half of the picture. You cannot see which clients or grades you are losing, or whether a branch that looks quiet is actually missing requests.
The question matters more as you grow. With one office, the owner can feel whether the agency is keeping up. With several branches, each with its own clients and bookers, that instinct no longer covers the whole business.
Why fill rate is invisible
Booking systems record bookings. Requests that were never filled leave no trace unless someone logs them. And requests arrive through so many channels that logging them all by hand is not realistic.
- Requests from portals, email and phone are not all recorded.
- Unfilled requests are simply ignored when they expire.
- Reasons for not filling, such as no nurse available or lost to another agency, are not captured.
- Each branch counts differently.
- Reports arrive after month end, when the pattern has moved on.
What not knowing costs
You cannot see where demand is going unmet, so recruitment is aimed by guesswork. Clients you are slowly losing are noticed only when they stop sending requests. Branches cannot be compared fairly. And the best growth signal an agency has, unmet demand from existing clients, is thrown away.
Individual bookers feel it too. A booker who works hard on a client with difficult requests can look less productive than one who handles an easy client, because nobody sees the requests behind the bookings.
| Measure | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Requests received | Demand by client, grade, specialty and time |
| Filled | What you supplied |
| Lost to another agency | Where you are too slow or too expensive |
| Not offered | Where you have no suitable nurse, so recruitment should focus |
| Cancelled by the client | Demand that disappeared, and at what notice |
How we build fill rate reporting
- Every request is recorded as it arrives, from portal notifications, emails, the on-call phone and the office, using the single shift inbox where you have one.
- Each request ends with an outcome: filled, lost, not offered, or cancelled, with a reason from a short list.
- Unfilled requests close automatically when the shift starts, prompting the booker for a reason if none was given.
- A live view shows fill rate by branch, client, grade, specialty, day and shift type.
- Trends over weeks show clients where your share is falling, before they stop sending requests.
- Unmet demand by grade and specialty is reported for your recruitment team.
What the owner sees
A live picture of demand and supply across the agency. Branches compared on the same measures. Clients drifting away spotted early. Recruitment focused on the grades and specialties you are actually short of. And the monthly meeting starts from facts rather than impressions.
Branch managers benefit as much as the owner. A branch that can see it is losing night shifts for one grade at one trust can act this week, perhaps by asking a few nurses to set night availability, rather than hearing about it at the month-end meeting.
Could this be your agency?
- You know bookings but not requests.
- Unfilled requests leave no record.
- Branches report performance differently.
- Recruitment is not based on unmet demand.
- You find out a client has drifted away when their requests stop.