In short
What this page covers
- See the roles on every shift before you publish
- Long days and nights you set up once
- Fill a call-off from your own team first
- The same faces on the same unit
For care homes
Rota software for care homes, days and nights covered
Hold the numbers you have committed to on every shift, fill a call-off before breakfast, and see what the agency is costing you while you can still do something about it. Free, for as many carers and homes as you have.
Where the time goes
What actually goes wrong on a care home rota
These are the everyday situations that turn a rota into a source of mistakes, phone calls and needless cost.
01
Six in the morning on a Sunday
A carer rings to say she cannot come in. The long day starts at eight, the night team are counting the hours down, and you are working through your contacts in the dark ringing people who are asleep. By the time someone answers you have lost an hour you needed for handover.
02
Agency filling a hole you could have seen a fortnight ago
The gap was in the rota the whole time. Nobody spotted it until the week started, so you paid three or four times a permanent carer for a shift your own team would have taken if anyone had asked them.
03
Counting the seniors by eye
You run a finger down the column at eleven at night to check every shift has a senior on it. It works until the week you are tired, the week someone swaps, or the week the last-minute cover is a care assistant and not the nurse you were counting.
04
The rota is a sheet on the office wall
Staff who are off cannot see it, so they message you instead. You answer the same question twelve times a week, and the version pinned up on Monday stopped being true on Tuesday.
05
Nights are the shift nobody plans until last
20:00 to 08:00 is a third of your rota and it gets built at the end, from whoever is left. The same three people carry it, the hours nobody checks add up quietly, and the burnout arrives as a resignation letter.
06
A different carer every week
Residents settle with faces they know. When the rota is built from whoever is available rather than from a pattern, the same person never comes back to the same unit, and you are teaching a new starter Mrs Doyle's routine for the fourth time this month.
How InShift fixes it
A rota built for a building that never closes, and for a manager who has to see the shape of the week before it happens. Everything below is in the free account, with no cap on people or homes.
Solution 1
See the roles on every shift before you publish
Each shift carries the role of the person on it, so a week of rota shows you your seniors, your nurses and your carers laid out side by side. You plan against the numbers you have set for your home and you spot the thin shift on Thursday while it is still Monday.
Solution 2
Long days and nights you set up once
An 08:00 to 20:00 long day, a 20:00 to 08:00 night, a twilight from four. Set the hours once, say how many carers it takes and which roles can be on it, then drop them onto the week. A month of rota takes minutes instead of a Sunday.
Solution 3
Fill a call-off from your own team first
Post the uncovered shift and every carer who could work it gets it on their phone at once. The first one free takes it and you tap approve. It is one action at six in the morning, and it goes to your own staff before it ever goes to an agency.
Solution 4
The same faces on the same unit
Build a pattern that works and repeat it, rather than starting from a blank week every time. Continuity stops being something you try to remember and becomes the default, because the rota already knows who was there last week.
Solution 5
Every home on one screen
One account holds all your homes. See who is on where, move a carer who is happy to cover both sites, and give each home manager only their own. It grows when you take on the next one.
Solution 6
Hours and agency spend ready for payroll
Hours add up as the rota is worked, at each carer's own hourly rate. Put agency workers on the rota at their own rate and the cost sits next to everything else instead of arriving as an invoice. Export the lot to Excel for whoever runs your payroll.
A day on the rota in a care home
A forty bed home, two units, staffed around the clock. Note that the people stack up around the morning, when everyone is getting up and washed, and that the night shift starts where the long day finishes so handover is on the rota rather than in the car park.
| Time | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 08:00-20:00 | Senior carer | Long day: takes handover at eight, leads the floor, does the meds round |
| 08:00-20:00 | Care assistant | Same unit, same faces, personal care from breakfast through to supper |
| 08:00-14:00 | Care assistant | Mornings only: the six hours when the whole home is getting up |
| 16:00-20:00 | Care assistant | Teatime cover, then settling the unit before the night team walk in |
| 20:00-08:00 | Nurse | Night: handover at eight, then holds the building until the day starts |
| 20:00-08:00 | Care assistant | Nights on the unit: checks, continence rounds, breakfast started at six |
Try it without an account
Three free tools that need no sign-up and no email. Build a rota or add up hours right now, and move to an account when the team has to see it.
Frequently asked questions
How many carers do I need on a long day in a forty bed home?▾
Start from your own numbers, not from a rule of thumb on a website. Whatever you have committed to for each unit, multiply it across the hours you need it: two units covered from 08:00 to 20:00 with a senior and two carers each is roughly 72 staffed hours a day before you count nights, and nights at half that is another 24. Add holiday, sickness and training and the head count you need is a good deal higher than the bodies on the floor. Put your real units and your real numbers into the rota and you will see your own figure rather than this one.
Can I make sure a senior or a nurse is on every shift?▾
You can see it, which is the part that is usually missing. Every shift carries a role, so the published week shows you at a glance where your seniors and nurses are and where a shift has none. To be plain about what the software is: InShift is a rota tool. It shows you the rota you have built and it does not enforce, guarantee or evidence any staffing requirement, yours or anybody else's. The numbers are your decision and the judgement stays with you. The rota is just where you can finally see them.
How does the team see the rota?▾
They install the InShift app on their phone from the App Store or Google Play and enter a six digit code you give them. That is the whole setup, no email address and no password to forget. When you change the rota they get a push notification, so nobody turns up for a shift that moved on Wednesday.
What happens when a carer calls off at six on a Sunday morning?▾
Publish it as an open shift. Every carer who could work it gets a notification at the same moment, including the ones you would not have thought to ring, and the first person to take it has it. You approve with one tap from your kitchen. The point is not that it is clever, it is that it is one action instead of eleven phone calls and an agency booking at a rate you did not want to pay.
Does it work out hours, nights and what agency is costing me?▾
It adds up the hours as the rota is worked, nights included, multiplies them by each person's hourly rate, and exports the timesheet to Excel for any period you choose. Agency workers go on the rota at their own rate, so the spend is visible in the same place as everything else. Rates are per person, so what somebody earns follows them across your homes.
Is it actually free, or free until it is not?▾
Free. All the features, as many carers and homes as you like, no card and no trial clock ticking. There is no billing in the product at all. We are not going to pretend otherwise on a page whose whole point is that you can trust the rota.