'Please do not send her again'
A ward manager rings your office on a Monday. The agency nurse at the weekend was late, and there was a disagreement on the ward. She asks that the nurse is not sent to that ward again. The booker who takes the call makes a note, perhaps in the nurse's record, perhaps in a notebook, perhaps nowhere.
Three weeks later a different booker, on a different shift, puts the same nurse forward for the same ward. The ward manager is unimpressed, and the trust's staffing office asks what your agency does with feedback.
Why feedback gets lost
Feedback, good and bad, reaches an agency informally. Some of it is a request about one ward; some is a wider concern that needs a manager to look at it properly. None of it naturally ends up where bookings are made.
- Feedback arrives by phone, email and portal, to whoever is around.
- Do-not-return requests may be for a ward, a site or the whole client, and the scope is not recorded.
- Nothing in the booking step checks for them.
- Concerns that need investigation are not separated from minor feedback.
- Good feedback is rarely recorded at all, so it does not help the nurse.
What that costs
Sending a nurse back to a ward that asked you not to is one of the quickest ways to lose a client's trust. Concerns that should have been looked at properly, and perhaps shared with others as your policy and obligations require, are left sitting in a note. And nurses who get good feedback never hear about it, which is a missed chance to keep good people.
Informal handling is also unfair to nurses. A single phone call from a ward, never discussed with the nurse, can quietly stop her being booked at a client she liked, without her knowing why or having any chance to respond.
| Feedback type | What should happen |
|---|---|
| Do-not-return for a ward or site | Block recorded with scope, applied at booking |
| Minor issue | Logged, nurse informed as your policy says |
| Concern needing review | Routed to a manager, handled under your policy |
| Praise | Logged and passed to the nurse |
How we build feedback handling
- Feedback is logged in one step from any channel, against the nurse, the client, the site and the ward, with the person who gave it.
- Do-not-return requests are recorded with their scope: ward, site or whole client.
- At booking, blocked combinations cannot be put forward, and the booker sees why.
- Feedback marked as a concern goes to a named manager, who records what was done under your policy.
- Nurses are told about feedback in the way your policy sets out, and praise is passed on.
- Reports show feedback by client and nurse, so managers can spot patterns early.
How concerns are investigated, and anything you may need to report elsewhere, are decisions for your managers and advisers. The system makes sure concerns reach them and are recorded.
What changes on the booking desk
A booker can no longer put a nurse forward where a client has asked you not to, whoever took the original call. Managers see concerns promptly, with the history. Nurses hear about the good feedback, not only the bad. And when a trust asks what you do with feedback, you can show them.
Nurses benefit from the fairness of it. Feedback is recorded against the right ward and scope, they hear about it as your policy says, and a block on one ward does not quietly become a block on the whole client because someone misread a note.
Is this your agency?
- Do-not-return requests are noted inconsistently.
- A nurse has been sent back to a ward that asked you not to.
- Concerns and minor feedback are handled the same way.
- Good feedback is not recorded or passed on.
- You could not quickly list all feedback for a client.