Case Studies

Florence is for NHS and social care providers looking to fill shifts with trusted nurses, care assistants and support workers.

Florence is used by a range of care settings including care homes, nursing homes, supported living homes, NHS and private hospitals, domiciliary care services, complex care services and mental health services.

Standard Florence Academy contracts are 12 months. You will have a dedicated account manager to choose the best pricing plan for your business. Get in touch to hear more.

No, we don’t charge cancellation fees.

At Florence, we are guided by our customers’ needs and powered by technology’s potential. Unlike others, we strive for simplicity, innovation and always, integrity:
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– We only work in the care sector – making us experts who truly understand you. From understanding care roles and needs to VAT rules.
– When introducing a new solution, ease of use needs to be a top priority; our solutions are award-winning, with 91% of users rating Florence as “easy to use”.
– Transparency is at the heart of what we do – even with pricing.
– Our customer support team is UK-based – meaning we can come and see you face to face and are always in your timezone.

Almost every home will engage with multiple agencies. Each agency is unique, so you will be managing different contracts, pricing and payment terms and approaches to compliance.

Managing this takes time, costs money and, in some cases, can add risk.

A neutral vendor can take this off you and simplify everything, freeing you up to do other higher-value tasks.

Our team is available 24/7 via our online chat or by email.

You set your own rates but must comply with the minimum wage rate.

We cover all roles that a care provider may need. We primarily cover front-line care roles, including nurses, carers, and support workers, but we also provide catering, cleaning, driving, maintenance and administrator roles.

You will receive weekly reports showing useful stats and information personalised for your organisation.

We would love to hear from you about what specifically you like to see in reports to make sure we build that in for you.

We only provide technology and staffing services to health and social care providers. Unlike many other neutral vendors, care is not an afterthought or add-on. We only do care. So, our entire operation is built with that in mind.

We provide nurses, carers, support workers with a variety of skills.

All incidents should be reported to the Incident management team via incidents@florence.co.uk. We facilitate and support the gathering and sharing of statements and information. This procedure ensures incidents are properly investigated, lessons are learned, and improvements implemented. A copy of our Incident Management Policy can be requested.

We take your data seriously here at Florence. We are Cyber Essentials certified and are on a number of public sector frameworks that involve a data security audit. If you have any specific questions regarding our data security, please contact our Data Protection Officer, Tom Wilshere, at tom.wilshere@florence.co.uk.

We take your data seriously here at Florence. We are Cyber Essentials certified and are on a number of public sector frameworks that involve a data security audit.

Florence is a staffing app for NHS and health and social care organisations. We work with 1000s of businesses across the UK to help them take control, save money and spend less time organising their staff. Our app allows you to manage your schedule, fill any shift gaps quickly and track all of your staff costs.

Florence Academy is custom learning and development software built for health and social care organisations.

We work with 100s of businesses across the UK to help them take control, spend less time managing their staff training and meet all of their regulatory training requirements.

A neutral vendor service allows us, as the neutral vendor, to act as your agent so that you can book agency staff from a selection of agencies under a standard set of favourable pricing, terms and conditions.

Our neutral vendor service provides a fair process, allowing agencies to be tiered and compete equally within each tier.

Using us, you can book temp staff best suited to your shifts from various agencies and get a single invoice each week, saving you time and money.

Companies using Florence’s neutral vendor solution each have a dedicated and backup account manager for ongoing support and training.

Your account manager and broader team are here to help you through any issues, 24/7.

Our platform allows you to track your staff learning and development, assign new courses, send automated reminders, and download certificates.

We currently have 100+ CPD approved courses available (including the Care Certificate) and are always creating new interesting content for our learners.

Unless there’s a serious risk, our approach to NMC referrals is to wait until the investigation is complete, to make sure there are no alternatives to reporting.

If possible, we prefer to help nurses mitigate risk to their practice by giving them opportunities to reflect and learn. We ask that clients tell us if they think an urgent referral is needed, and share their reasons with us before reporting.

Florence is a pay as you go service, you only pay when you fill shifts with us.

The short answer is yes.

You’ll get an individual spend analysis to let you know what savings you can expect to make. If you won’t make savings with Florence, we will also let you know.

It important to also consider the indirect costs of the processing and managing multiple agency relationships when considering savings.

No. We have no hidden costs, you only pay when you use us to fill shifts.

Yes – Florence can provide a master vendor service and would be delighted to discuss this further.

For care providers in the private sector, there are typically VAT disadvantages to working with a master vendor, so we would recommend a neutral vendor.

If you are in the public sector, this is less of an issue, and master vendors tend to be the favoured option.

Yes, you can if they pass Florence’s compliance standards. If they do not meet our standards we will discuss this with you and decide on the next steps.

Yes, you can add as many users as you need.

Absolutely. At Florence we encourage continuity of care as much as possible and have a favourites feature so you can invite staff back, again and again.

We understand you might need to print off your staff’s certificates from time to time. So we’ve added a button to make this easy for you to do if you need to.

Yes. You can post shifts, review applicants and approve timesheets at anytime from anywhere.

Yes we interview every professional who joins Florence and perform rigorous background checks covering relevant training and qualifications, right-to-work and criminal history.

Head over to our help centre where you can find more information on registering to Florence, shifts and payments and much more.

Our neutral vendor offering is a separate company from our staffing company. We let our customers decide whether to add Florence’s staffing business to their panel. There is no obligation to do this.

If you choose to add Florence to your panel, it is treated as every other agency in that tier. Florence will receive the shifts at the same time and get no preferential treatment.

Our system uses rule-based algorithms to match staff to your shifts, which you control. Simply put, our system keeps it fair and neutral.

Please don’t approach Florence care professionals directly for statements. Instead, let us work with you to investigate so that we’re both fully aware of the context.

We’ll contact the care professional involved, share concerns and request a statement on your behalf. If you have any specific questions that you’d like us to ask, please pass them on. We’re also happy to arrange follow-up questions after a statement has been shared with you.

If you want to speak to someone about an ongoing investigation, please contact incidents@florence.co.uk.

Once you’ve added your staff to your account they will be alerted by email with a link to sign up. From this point they are free to access their account at any time, from any device.

The best way to report an incident to Florence is by email, so that both parties have a record of what was reported and when. Send a brief outline of what happened to incidents@florence.co.uk. If you need advice about whether the issue is reportable, please speak to your account manager.

With Florence, you can be up and running in minutes. Book a demo to get started.

From signing the contract, Florence takes 2-4 weeks to implement across a mid-size care organisation.

We aim to investigate within four weeks of incidents being reported. Sometimes investigations can take longer, especially if third parties like police or safeguarding teams are involved.

We work with over 300 agencies across the UK. We are happy to add other agencies to Florence if they pass our compliance standards. If you have a favourite agency not on our panel, we would be delighted to add them.

There is no added charge to book temp staff from Florence into shifts through neutral vendor.

Booking staff from non-Florence agencies into shifts costs 50p per hour plus VAT.

Booking your own staff into shifts costs 25p per hour.

There are no other fees.

Yes, you can do this by visiting the care professional’s profile via your account and selecting the ‘block’ option, then providing a reason for the block.

We’ll respect your decision to block the care professional without question, but it helps improve quality of care if you also send an email to incidents@florence.co.uk to tell us why you don’t want to work with the care professional anymore. Given the right training and support, low-level concerns that are not incidents can be “nipped in the bud” early.

With Florence Academy, you can be up and running in minutes. The current record for a small care home group (with 42 staff) to build out their training from scratch is 16 minutes. If you beat it let us know and we will send you some chocolates. Yes, really. 🤝

91% of our users find it super easy to use and we are always at hand if you need a refresher training session for you and your teams.

Many of our customers tell us they are often approached by consultants to help them select the best provider. If you are looking to keep an eye on costs, we recommend doing this work research & comparison in-house.

However, if you do decide to use a consultant, we recommend carefully reviewing the terms of service, including best rates, contractual obligations and most importantly agreeing a fixed rate.

While there are benefits to having all bookings go through Florence, outside bookings do occur. Florence can process the billing for these and capture the MI.

Some neutral vendors look at your invoices and then offer to take a share of the savings. You only should pay a fair and transparent fee for the service, and any savings should be yours.

Typically, 99%.

Unfortunately, there will always be some shifts we can’t fill. At Florence, we don’t like to make empty promises, so we will never say 100%.

We will give your company an individualised, accurate forecast based on your previous and expected future usage.

When a shift is cancelled you will be notified and Florence will automatically attempt to find you a replacement.

You can also remove agencies from your selection at will.

There is no simple answer. It depends on your organisation and current set up. We would be happy to discuss this further and propose what we believe is the best solution for you.

We follow HRMC’s guidelines.

Our fees when you book an agency worker or your own staff are VATable.
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When you book an agency worker, HMRC nursing concession will apply.

Each case is different, but in most cases, nurses do not attract VAT, and neither do some carer roles.

Florence Academy has been built for the social care sector, primarily for small and medium sized providers and home care providers.

If you are running a care home, a support service or a domiciliary care business then Florence Academy has been designed for you.

When care professionals are involved in a medication error or omission, it’s important for them to review relevant documents so they can write a comprehensive statement. These might include topical MAR charts and entries from controlled drug registers.

If we ask you to supply this, please redact any identifiable details like service user names. It also helps if you can highlight the error on the MAR, especially if there are multiple entries.