You said, we did
Thank you for taking the time to complete our latest Viewpoint survey. We’re grateful that you and so many others took the time to complete our Viewpoint surveys. It’s also great to receive so many positive comments about our service and our teams that support you. We’re continuing to use your feedback to improve your experience with Pulse. With that in mind, here’s our response to the latest survey.
Shift availability
You asked for more shifts in Wales and we’re delivering them
We’re pleased to announce that we have secured a contract to provide HCAs, nurses, ODPs and midwives to eight major health boards in Wales. The contract offers escalated rates of pay, up to £49 per hour (PAYE) for nurses. If you’re interested in these shifts, please speak to your consultant.
You asked for more shifts on ipoint and mentioned some frustrations with shift availability and cancellations. Each month we advertise over 60,000 shifts on ipoint and we’re proactively working with new clients every day to add more. Shifts are loaded in real-time meaning they’re available on a first come, first served basis. If you see a shift you want to book, we recommend you book it, so you don’t miss out. With thousands of nursing professionals working with Pulse, many of our shifts are booked minutes after they are added to the ipoint app.
Shift availability continued…
To ensure you get access to the shifts you want, we recommend you:
- Turn on ipoint app notifications, so we can contact you when a shift matches your profile
- Regularly check your list of ‘similar shifts’ in the app, these are tailored to your preferences and follow the pattern of your previously worked shifts
- Update your availability – if we know when you’re available, we’ll contact you with available shifts. Some of which may not be on ipoint
Shifts on ipoint are flexible
For example, if you’re looking for a long day, we can merge an early and late shift to accommodate your request. If you see a long day but you’d prefer just an early or late, please contact us and we will split the shift. The shifts are shown on ipoint in the manner that the clients release them, but most of the time we can manually change the shifts to match your preferences. Speak to your consultant and they will make the change on our system and book the shift for you.
Cancellations appeared in our latest survey, so we wanted to share how cancellations work and why we receive them. Like all NHS framework agencies, our shifts are booked via client portals. When we advertise a shift and you request to book it, we need to confirm the shift on the portal before staff banks and other agencies. We’ve invested in technology that automates the confirmation process but on occasion the shift may be filled before we can confirm you in it. Although we’ve reduced cancellations by 50% over the last 18 months, we understand they can be frustrating. We continue to take your comments on board, and we’re proactively investing in ways to ensure we can confirm you in a shift as quickly as possible.
Communication
Your feedback on our communication has been extremely positive and we’ve made sure to praise the members of staff who were mentioned positively by name. They are extremely grateful for your kind words and appreciation.
In July, we answered 81% of calls in 30 seconds using our new telephony system. As a reminder, you can now contact our teams using one telephone number, 0333 577 3410. Calls are charged at local rates, even when calling from a mobile. Here’s a reminder of the different options when you call us:
Option 1 – Bookings team
Option 2 – Recruitment team
Option 3 – Compliance team
We’ve also implemented a recognisable caller ID to show when we contact you via telephone. We’re pleased to say that 0333 577 3410 is now our caller ID; another service improvement based on your Viewpoint feedback.
ipoint
We’ve heard your concerns regarding ipoint, and the recent frustrations experienced in May when an update caused some glitches in the app. Behind the scenes our team worked quickly to rectify this, but we acknowledge that the experience of using the app during this period was below expectations.
Our ipoint strategy has focused on continual improvement and introduction of features requested by our users. While these new features are intended to improve your ipoint experience, we understand that this wasn’t the case in May, and apologise for any inconvenience caused. Since then, we’ve focused our efforts on improving the app stability as well as adding new features.
The latest new features ready for you to use:
Dynamic filters – we’ve added new filters that ensure you find the shifts you want with ease. The new filters show the total number of shifts available as filters are added or removed.
Date range filter – the new date range filter allows you to search for shifts in a specific date range that you choose, up to a maximum period of 7 days.
In app referrals – you can recommend your friends to Pulse using the ipoint app. Simply input your friends’ details, hit submit and we’ll do the rest. Your referral will be logged against your Pulse record and once the criteria is met, you’ll receive your bonus.
We’re always looking for users to support our ipoint app development. If you’re interested, you’ll receive £30 for each session you attend. Contact us for more details.
Pay
Rates of pay featured in our latest results, with questions around why our rates of pay differ from other companies like Thornbury. As a framework agency, we are bound by the framework rates and therefore we cannot pay our nurses the same rates as off-framework agencies (like Thornbury). The benefits of being with a framework agency like Pulse are the continual volume of work available, the proximity of the shifts to your home and the ability to book shifts in advance. What’s more, as a framework agency we are required to pass on any rate escalations direct to you. This means that if you work a shift with an escalated rate, the full escalated fee is passed on to you. We don’t take any cut of it.
Off-framework agencies pay higher hour rates, but they require nurses to travel longer distances for shifts, pick up shifts at little or no notice and their demand for nurses can fluctuate as the NHS prefer to work with framework accredited agencies. Read our payment guide for agency nurses for more information regarding your pay.
We acknowledge your appetite for digital timesheets and we’re pleased to say that we are currently running e-timesheets on ipoint for a small test group. So far, the results are really promising. Once we’re happy the functionality works as it should, we’ll release it to all. If you would like to join our test group of users, please contact us.
Thanks once again for your participation in our Viewpoint surveys. Your feedback really can make a difference to your experience with us.
