Monday morning's round of messages
Every Monday your bookers text nurses asking for their availability for the next fortnight. Replies trickle in all week: 'free Tues and Thurs nights', 'can do any long days but not Sunday', a voice note, a photo of a paper calendar. Each booker writes what they receive into their own spreadsheet or a column in the booking system.
By Wednesday some of it has changed. A nurse took shifts with another agency, or her own ward at the trust where she also works bank. She tells nobody, and your booker rings her for a shift she can no longer do.
Why availability is always out of date
Nurses who work through agencies often work for more than one, and many also hold bank or substantive posts. Their availability changes constantly, and they will only keep one agency updated if it is quick and easy to do so.
- Availability arrives in free text through several channels.
- It is recorded by the booker who received it, not in one place.
- Nurses are asked by several bookers, so they stop replying.
- Changes are rarely sent back, because it takes effort.
- Availability is not linked to matching, so bookers still ring round.
What stale availability costs
Bookers ring nurses who are not available and miss nurses who are. Shifts go unfilled, or filled later than they could have been. Nurses get repeated messages and feel pestered. And you cannot see your real capacity for the week ahead, which makes it hard to say yes to a block booking.
It also works against the nurses you most want to keep. The reliable ones, who would happily take more shifts, are the ones rung least because bookers assume they are busy, while nurses who never reply are texted every week.
| Availability detail | Text message method | Calendar in the app |
|---|---|---|
| Days and shift types | Free text, interpreted | Tapped on a calendar by shift type |
| Preferences | Mentioned once, forgotten | Saved: wards, clients, travel distance |
| Changes | Rarely sent | Updated in seconds by the nurse |
| Who holds it | Each booker | One shared record |
| Used in matching | No | Yes, for every offer |
How we build availability collection
- Each nurse has an availability calendar in the app, where they tap days and shift types, such as early, late, long day or night.
- Nurses can save preferences once: clients and wards they like, maximum travel, shift types they will not do.
- A weekly prompt asks nurses to confirm or update the next few weeks, which takes a moment if nothing has changed.
- Nurses can mark themselves as booked elsewhere, so they are not offered shifts they have filled.
- Availability feeds shift matching, so offers go to nurses who said they are free.
- Bookers see a capacity view by grade, specialty and day, useful when a client asks about a block of shifts.
- Nurses without the app can reply to a short text link, and the answer lands in the same calendar.
A week with real availability
Bookers stop sending Monday texts and start from a shared picture of who is free. Nurses update their calendar when things change, because it takes seconds. Offers go to the right people. And you can answer a client's question about next month's capacity with something better than a guess.
Nurses who work with several agencies often say the one they favour is the one that asks least and offers best. A calendar they control, which results in offers that fit, is a small thing that makes your agency that one.
Does this match your agency?
- Availability is collected by text every week.
- Each booker keeps their own record.
- Nurses are rung for shifts on days they said they were busy.
- Nurses complain about too many messages.
- You cannot see next week's capacity by grade.