Digital health workforce management firm Patchwork Health has launched an AI-powered rostering tool to help NHS hospitals staff their wards.

The technology uses a bespoke algorithm to turn competing clinician shift preferences and service demands into rosters, allowing clinicians to have greater control over their rotas and reducing the administrative burden on management teams.

Patchwork’s preference-based rostering tool has been trialled and is in use at four NHS trusts across London, Yorkshire and the south west of England.

Dr Anas Nader, co-founder and chief executive at Patchwork Health, said: “Traditional rostering is a driving factor behind the NHS retention crisis, and the resulting spend on agency staff.

“Disjointed systems, rigid shift patterns and a general lack of transparency have left clinicians feeling they have no control over their own working patterns, while managers are constantly scrambling to fill vacancies and maintain service delivery.

“If we’re serious about reducing our health service’s reliance on temporary staff, then we need to be smarter about the way we use – and treat – our existing pool of NHS clinicians.

“Giving frontline workers the flexibility and autonomy they crave isn’t just good for morale, it makes sense for the service as a whole.”

The AI tool can design tailored rosters for NHS hospital departments, considering thousands of job planning permutations and clinical preferences.

It distributes night shifts, weekend work and long shifts fairly, factoring in the shift preferences of clinicians and optimising scheduling so that shift gaps are reduced.

In an early trial, Patchwork created a 10-week work schedule for an NHS ward and compared the impact of using its rostering platform with a traditional roster-building process.

Across the 10-week period, the roster created by Patchwork’s tool cut unfilled shifts by 97%, which led to a 98% reduction in temporary staffing costs from £18,000 to £400.

Results from the first full NHS rollouts of the AI rostering tool will be published later this year.

“Flexibility for clinicians and productivity for the NHS are often seen as mutually exclusive. Preference-based rostering flips that assumption on its head.

“With better work-life balance, we can reduce burnout and increase job satisfaction in our NHS. That means fewer shifts for NHS trusts to fill with temporary workers, more efficient workforce management, and, crucially, a better service for patients,” Dr Nader added.

In August 2025, Digital Health News reported that Patchwork had welcomed 17 new partnerships since its acquisition of L2P in 2024.