The support worker's shift, on their phone.

What a support worker sees when they sign in

The first page is My shift. It opens with one card that says where they stand today: on shift, with the times and who else is on; on leave or off sick; not on the rota today, with their next shift and its date; or this week's rota not published yet.

Under it sit the handover — read or not, and how many entries are new — and one way in to write a care record. Then their own work and nobody else's: follow-ups they own, records sent back with the manager's reason, and a timesheet due in.

• Quick actions

  My rota and My timesheet, plus Log spend and Raise a request where the manager has allowed them.

• Your time

  Hours logged this pay period, sleep nights, and holiday left before the holiday year ends.

A care staff rota app: cover, swaps and open shifts

My rota lists a worker's published shifts — today, the next fortnight and later — with the open shifts at the home. From any shift of their own they can ask for cover, giving a reason, or propose a swap with a colleague in the same week. An open shift can be claimed with one button: "I'll take this shift".

Each lands in one list for the manager, who approves or declines it, and the worker hears the answer in the app and by email. Building and publishing the rota stays with the people who run the home.

The timesheet starts itself from the rota

Each published shift goes onto the worker's draft timesheet on its day, so nobody types the same hours twice. They add what the rota cannot know: a sleep-in and the hours they were woken, annual leave, a day off sick, extra time the manager agreed, and mileage or expenses where their file allows it.

When they log being woken in the night, they can say which young person it was about and what helped, and a Woken in the night record goes on that young person's file in the same save. They can ask for days off, see their holiday balance, and press Submit when the period is done.

Safety checks, signed off from the phone

A manager chooses which checks the team may sign off — a fire alarm test, the first aid kit, a vehicle safety check — and they appear on the Safety checks tab with their due dates. The worker answers the checklist and signs, and it goes straight into the home's compliance record in their name.

If a check fails or finds something to put right, the people who run the home are told, with the reading where there is one.

Quick record: a log or incident with no signal

Quick record is a short way to write a daily log or an incident from a phone. With signal, it goes on the young person's record straight away. Without, it waits on the phone and sends itself, in order, when the signal returns — and sending twice never makes two records.

• Locked on the phone

  A waiting record is encrypted with a key made on that phone, which cannot be copied off it.

• Nothing earlier is kept

  Only what the worker typed and has not yet sent sits on the phone. Older records cannot be read offline.

• Cleared when it should be

  Waiting records go if someone else signs in on that phone, or after 24 hours unsent, with a warning first.

Messages instead of the WhatsApp group

Workers message each other, start groups and reach the management team in one tap; managers post announcements to the whole home. A conversation can be raised to a named manager, and with the right care access a message can be put on a young person's record word for word.

Their own renewal dates, without having to ask

On My account, a worker sees every renewal date on their own staff file — supervision and the background check (DBS in England and Wales, PVG in Scotland, AccessNI in Northern Ireland) — and each probation review still to come, in date order. So they know when their next one-to-one is due. They see the dates only, never the documents or anything a manager wrote.

Is it a real app? Getting it on the phone

Careframe is a web app. It opens in the browser on any up-to-date phone, tablet or laptop, and from the browser's menu it can be added to the phone's home screen with its own Careframe icon.

Each worker has their own login, can turn on two-step sign-in, and is signed out when the phone sits idle.

Questions people ask

Read next

• Rotas & timesheets
• Compliance
• Staff files
• Security