The NHS 10-Year Health Plan arrives as the latest in a series of ambitious blueprints, once again positioning itself as a catalyst for meaningful change, aiming to improve care delivery while reshaping the working environment for its dedicated workforce.

Packed with forward-thinking initiatives, it sets out a future where staff wellbeing, operational efficiency, and the thoughtful use of technology are brought to the forefront. But while the vision is welcome and much-needed, the true test will be in the application. If delivered, this plan represents more than just intention; it offers a real opportunity to build flexible, motivated, and empowered healthcare teams.

Here, we explore how the plan addresses key aspects of workforce management and why, if realised, these changes could help build a brighter, more sustainable future for everyone in the system.

Redefining staff numbers and quality by 2035 

By 2035, the NHS staffing landscape is set to look very different. Compared to the projections laid out in the 2023 Long Term Workforce Plan, there will be fewer healthcare professionals in post. However, those who remain will work within an improved environment, one that prioritises how staff are treated, trained and supported throughout their careers.

The focus is clearly shifting from workforce quantity to workforce quality. This means more meaningful career development, stronger day-to-day support, and better recognition of each individual’s contribution. These changes are designed to improve performance and morale, while also ensuring care remains consistent and high quality.

Central to this approach will be the systems that underpin how staff grow, feel valued, and are deployed in ways that match demand. From job planning and appraisals to regular feedback and structured progression, the plan signals a move towards a more intentional, supportive employment experience across the NHS.

Technology has a crucial role to play in this. Digital tools can bring greater transparency to how staff are allocated, ensure rotas reflect individual preferences and capacity, and support continuous development through easier access to appraisals, learning, and feedback. When deployed well, these systems don’t just manage the workforce, they help teams feel seen, supported, and better aligned to service needs.

A shift towards reform and value-based care

The NHS is moving away from a model that prioritises short-term financial goals without addressing the structural challenges that underpin them. In its place comes a value-based approach, one that seeks to maximise outcomes for every pound spent. This marks a significant shift in how decisions are made, with resource allocation and performance measured not by input alone, but by the impact on patient care and staff wellbeing.

To make this shift meaningful, access to accurate, real-time workforce data will be essential. Understanding patterns of staffing, demand, and capacity at both local and system levels can unlock more efficient deployment, reduce gaps in care, and support the shift from reactive to proactive planning. Without this level of insight, efforts to improve outcomes risk falling short.

Technology that enables this, through smarter scheduling, better communication, and agile workforce reporting, will be crucial. These solutions don’t just optimise staffing in the moment; they create a more responsive, transparent foundation for long-term transformation, helping workforce leaders align resources with clinical need and strategic goals.

Flexible work as the new standard 

Flexible working is fast becoming a non-negotiable across the NHS, and the plan reinforces this shift. It sets out an approach to reduce reliance on costly extra-contractual work and to eliminate agency staffing altogether by the end of this parliamentary term. The proposed transition of agency workers into staff bank roles promises greater flexibility for clinicians, stronger familiarity for teams, and improved cost efficiency for organisations.

There is real potential in this change, with projected savings of up to £1 billion over the next five years. Crucially, this is money that could be channelled back into frontline services and workforce support.

For clinicians, flexibility has long been tied to better work-life balance, greater autonomy, and a sense of control over schedules. The benefits for patients are just as clear, with more consistent care and stronger staff engagement. It is encouraging to see this direction backed at a national level, and for those of us who have championed flexible working for years, it feels like a long-overdue alignment between policy and practice.

The transition away from agency will require the right infrastructure to make it work in reality. Technology that is built around flexibility, visibility, and ease of use will be essential to making this vision stick and to truly embed new ways of working for the long term.

Staff given smart technology

Technology sits at the heart of the NHS’s latest vision. There is a strong emphasis on workforce management technology, with commitments to reducing administrative burdens so that staff can spend more time with patients. The benefits here are twofold: improving outcomes while helping to ease burnout and stress, promising to reshape both how care is delivered and how teams work behind the scenes. It’s a familiar idea, and one that’s been explored before, but it is refreshing to see it clearly backed by national bodies.

Crucially, this plan recognises that empowering healthcare professionals also means giving them the right tools, not just digitising for the sake of it. We have seen the difference that effective, fit-for-purpose systems can make to staff morale, retention and performance. When technology supports rather than hinders, the impact across an organisation is significant.

Alongside this, the plan places a welcome focus on staff wellbeing and development, from smoother onboarding processes to tackling non-clinical workload. There is a clear shift towards creating a working environment where people feel supported and valued. It is a recognition that long-term sustainability does not just depend on budgets or technology adoption, but on how well the NHS supports the people powering it. 

A future of possibility 

The NHS 10-Year Health Plan paints a hopeful picture of the future. By harnessing flexible working models, leveraging technology, and investing in its greatest asset, its people, the NHS is positioning itself as a modern employer and a global leader in healthcare innovation. 

Achieving these goals will require partnership, collaboration, and a willingness to embrace change. The foundations laid by this plan should pave the way for a sustainable, efficient, and patient-centred NHS. 

Whether you’re a workforce leader, manager, or frontline clinician, the time to engage with this transformation is now. Together, we can build an NHS that not only meets the needs of patients but empowers its staff to thrive. 

 

Comments from our CEO and Co-Founder, Dr Anas Nader: 

“While ‘doctors in pockets’ and AI diagnostics will grab the headlines, the behind-the-scenes transformation this plan promises to deliver is just as important.

If we are serious about building an NHS ‘fit for the future,’ we urgently need to find ways to maximise operational efficiency and implement new solutions to address age-old problems like staffing and service planning.

That’s why I’m especially pleased to see leaders commit to harnessing digital tools that free up staff time and streamline laborious admin, as well as the focus on offering greater flexibility for clinicians. The test now will be how the government goes about delivering on these pledges.

Goals such as eliminating all external agency spend by the end of this parliament are ambitious, but without a concrete strategy to replace this essential labour, we risk adding to the pressure on overstretched teams and exacerbating the strain on our chronically overburdened health service.”

 

And, just like that, another year has flown by. As has become custom, I wanted to reflect on, and celebrate, everything that the last twelve months have brought. Whilst every year feels memorable in the world of scale-ups, this year was particularly significant for Patchwork Health. We welcomed some incredible new NHS partners, turned a huge variety of product dreams into reality, and completed our first acquisition. Ahead of a well-deserved winter break for our team, here’s a round-up of some things we’re proud of from 2024. 

Welcoming new NHS partners

Over the course of this year, our community of valued NHS customers has grown considerably. Over 60 NHS organisations across the UK are now leveraging Patchwork Health technology for their workforce needs. 

This includes Barts Health NHS Trust, Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Cornwall Partnership NHS Foundation Trust who we were delighted to welcome to join us in 2024. Working alongside these fantastic teams is a privilege, and we look forward to supporting them and all of our new partners as they implement innovative new workforce strategies in the months and years ahead.

This growth means that our solutions now support more than 55,000 healthcare workers and have saved the NHS over £120 million to date. In the past two years alone, more than 12 million shift hours were filled thanks to our technology.

Innovating to build a sustainable, flexible future for the NHS

To support this growing community of users and customers, our team has worked hard to deliver a host of updates and new features that have redefined flexibility and efficiency for both clinicians and managers.

Patchwork Rota has expanded functionality and features that place flexibility and fairness at the forefront of our offering:

• Our new shift swap feature empowers clinicians to propose rota changes and manage their schedules with ease, and managers can easily approve requested swaps without an additional admin burden. This is all possible while still maintaining safe staffing levels.
• We’ve introduced integrated service plans to ensure rotas align with true patient demand, minimising discrepancies in planned versus actual spend.
• To unlock the true potential of self-rostering, we’ve introduced a preference-based approach – combining clinician preferences with cutting-edge algorithms to assign shifts in a way that’s equitable, transparent, and efficient.

Patchwork Bank continued its evolution with:

• A platform makeover, making it faster and more intuitive for managers and temporary staffing teams.
• Enhanced block booking capabilities, including on-call shift scheduling, retrospective edits, and lightning-fast loading speeds.
• Wagestream integration – offering clinicians access to the benefits of Wagestream, all within our app. This provides real-time visibility of earnings and financial well-being support, as well as the ability to choose when to get paid and access a range of unique discounts. 

With Patchwork Agency Manager, we removed even more of the admin burden for healthcare teams:

• We’ve enhanced our direct engagement capabilities – making us the only single-tech solution in the market to offer fully integrated direct engagement contracting.
• Our new auto-cascade features allow organisations to automatically assign shifts through agency tiers based on configurable rules, saving time while improving compliance and control.

We’ve also continued to develop our Insights tools – harnessing machine learning to lay the foundations for even smarter analytics and data-driven workforce management in the years to come.

Collaboration & celebration

Last month, we had the huge pleasure of announcing our acquisition of L2P Enterprise Ltd. L2P is the country’s foremost provider of medical appraisal software and the fastest-growing provider of job planning software to healthcare professionals, with over 75 NHS Trusts using their solutions. This new partnership will allow us to offer a truly end-to-end suite of tools to meet clinical workforce needs – from capacity and demand planning to workforce deployment, reporting and appraisals. Our combined reach means we are now supporting over 100,000 clinicians across more than 200 healthcare organisations. 

2024 also marked a major milestone for the NHS Collaborative Bank – MWL in the North West – a Patchwork Health powered initiative led by Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. The collaborative bank, which is the largest in the UK, celebrated its four-year anniversary in November. So far, the initiative has filled more than 490,000 shift hours, saving £3 million in agency spend and retaining £32.7 million worth of staffing costs within the NHS. 

Another standout moment from this year was winning the Workforce and Wellbeing Initiative of the Year award at the HSJ Partnership Awards, recognising our efforts to unlock flexible working for clinicians across more than 60 NHS organisations. Last week, we were also announced as finalists alongside Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust in next year’s HSJ awards, for our work retaining and recruiting the Trust’s medical workforce via our end-to-end staffing solution.

The people who make it possible

It goes without saying that none of this would have been achievable without the dedication, energy, and creativity of the Patchwork Health team. Your hard work inspires me every day – from pushing the boundaries of innovation to organising incredible initiatives like the annual cycling trip, which saw us raise over £3,000 for the Motor Neurone Disease Association. I feel immensely proud and grateful to call you my colleagues. 

I also want to extend our thanks and gratitude to our incredible colleagues working within the NHS. Under relentless pressure and facing a constant stream of new challenges, your dedication to providing outstanding, compassionate care to patients provides all the motivation we need to continue creating new, innovative solutions to support you. Together, we will build a flexible, sustainable healthcare workforce – fit to face the challenges that lie ahead. 

Looking ahead

As we step into 2025, I’m filled with pride for what we’ve accomplished so far and with excitement for what’s still to come. The road ahead for the NHS has arguably never been more challenging, but that only fuels our motivation to make a difference. With our acquisition of L2P, our growing cohort of NHS champions, an ambitious product roadmap, and the most talented team in healthtech, I can’t wait to see what we achieve together next year at this most critical juncture for the country’s healthcare system.

 

View Patchwork Health’s 2024 wrap-up video here

 

 

What is productivity in the NHS?

Productivity is a crucial focus for NHS organisations, given the current impact managing a vast and diverse workforce can often have on efficiency. Reliance on outdated processes and fragmented staffing systems has often led to ineffective staffing and unnecessary costs. And without real-time access to NHS workforce statistics, organisations are forced to react to staffing issues at the last minute instead of managing them proactively. Below, we outline the challenges organisations face when it comes to workforce insights, and how a data-driven solution can enhance NHS workforce productivity. 

 

How does inconsistent NHS workforce data impact decision-making?

In the NHS, decisions about workforce deployment are often made with outdated or incomplete data, resulting in potential understaffing or overstaffing, both of which place undue strain on resources. For example, without visibility of previous active bank workers, staffing teams may source an agency worker rather than relying on known, and more cost-effective, bank workers to fill gaps. This can lead to a myriad of inefficiencies across departments. Making any decision without all the necessary tools is difficult, however, what is frustrating for many managers is that NHS workforce statistics are there, but many systems don’t easily surface this information for teams to access when necessary.

 

Inform decision-making with NHS workforce statistics

To address this, systems should enable staffing managers to leverage real-time data insights to make informed decisions about workforce deployment through reporting software. By continuously monitoring staffing activities – such as shift patterns, absenteeism rates, and retention trends – administrators can proactively manage staffing levels, reducing the risk of misallocation. This ensures resources are used where they are most needed, enhancing overall efficiency simply by tapping into the NHS workforce statistics coming out of day-to-day workforce management.

One example of this in practice is access to data relating to shift lead times – if systems enable managers to identify the average lead times for different shift bookings, they can more easily and accurately decide the appropriate time to broadcast, or escalate, specific shifts to maximise fill rates. As a result, managers can save time on delivering crucial actions, feel reassured that decisions are backed by data and help minimise staffing spend.

Poor engagement from clinicians

Retaining staff is critical in the NHS, given the latest NHS Staff Survey reported that 29% of participants often think about leaving. Yet without further insight into where bottlenecks or disengagement are occurring, recruitment and retention efforts can be inefficient and costly. Traditional processes often involve long wait times and manual approvals, which can deter clinicians from completing the onboarding process. Clinicians might be discouraged from engaging with digital platforms too if the onboarding process is cumbersome or delayed, leading to low engagement and underutilisation of available staff. 

Without visibility into these issues, organisations risk losing valuable workers before they have even started. When managers aren’t granted access to the number of available clinicians and where they can be most appropriately deployed, it becomes even harder to plan and manage staffing activities effectively, significantly reducing productivity as a result.

 

Better utilisation of the workforce

NHS workforce statistics offer a solution by enabling organisations to streamline recruitment and retention efforts. By tracking the number of applicants awaiting approval to staff banks and their specialities, for example, NHS trusts can prioritise onboarding for high-demand roles. Monitoring the time it takes for an applicant to move through the system also helps identify and address any delays. This proactive approach ensures that departments with urgent needs are prioritised, reducing the time and costs associated with recruitment.

By analysing the demographics and engagement levels of bank workers specifically, NHS organisations can make informed decisions that improve workforce utilisation. Identifying specialities with a high number of unengaged workers allows for targeted re-engagement strategies, ensuring these workers are effectively utilised. This approach not only optimises the full use of the current workforce but also prevents unnecessary recruitment efforts in areas that are already well-staffed.

Conclusion

Leveraging NHS workforce statistics is a game-changer for boosting productivity within the NHS. By integrating real-time information into decision-making processes, organisations can move from reactive to proactive workforce management. Data-driven insights allow teams to anticipate staffing needs, address inefficiencies before they escalate, and ensure that resources are optimally allocated.

For NHS staff working with data, the goal is to transform these numbers into actionable insights that empower teams to be as productive as possible. With these tools, organisations can confidently navigate the complexities of workforce management, making informed choices that increase productivity, drive efficiency, and support a happier, more engaged workforce.