Digitising Non-Clinical Rostering: How NHS Golden Jubilee Transformed Hospital Housekeeping with RLDatix’s Optima & Loop

Summary 

NHS Golden Jubilee has transformed its approach to non-clinical rostering with the implementation of RLDatix’s Optima and Loop for its Hospital Housekeeping team. Replacing paper-based processes, the Health Board has introduced mobile-enabled scheduling, leave management, and real-time communication, improving visibility, reducing admin burden, and boosting staff satisfaction. Building on this success, the Health Board has since completed rollouts to its porters team and Conference Hotel staff and is now extending adoption into clinical areas as part of its journey towards a fully integrated workforce platform.  

The challenge 

Prior to its deployment, NHS Golden Jubilee housekeeping staff did not have a central visibility for staff to view their shifts, request annual leave, or note absences. Staff would frequently visit team leaders in person, requesting information or changes, creating unnecessary admin, interruptions, and delays. 

There was a separate annual leave planner, the main rota for shifts, attendance cards to record absences, and a sickness planner.

“We didn’t really have a solid platform for housekeeping staff to view their shifts. They didn’t have anything to show where annual leave is going. It was all spreadsheet-based and it was just like a paper copy of a rota.”

Shaun O’Neill
Housekeeping Assistant Manager

In addition, the team lacked accurate data on staffing levels, or sickness absence, limiting their ability to forecast resources in advance or contribute to workforce wellness. With housekeeping staff rotating across multiple wards, the lack of real-time rostering visibility created operational inefficiencies alongside a poor user experience.

The added complication was that not many of the staff were technology savvy, and with over 80 in the team, any tech-based solution would need to be user friendly, easy to use, and sensitive to user levels of competence.

The solution and benefits 

NHS Golden Jubilee chose to roll out RLDatix’s Optima as the rostering system and Loop as the communication interface. With the Hospital housekeeping team as an early adopter service, this made a significant digital step forward for a traditionally paper-based, non-clinical function. 

Most of the housekeepers did not use computers or mobile apps. A “train the trainer” method assisted localising learning and ownership which helped to overcome concerns around staff digital literacy. The implementation went well with positive feedback and staff now find Optima and Loop easy to navigate on mobile devices. 

Key Benefits: 

• For Staff: 

• Mobile access to shifts and annual leave 

• Self-service absence requests via Loop 

• Better work-life balance through forward planning 

• For Managers: 

• Real-time visibility into sickness and absence trends 

• Digital audit trails and reduced risk of manual errors 

• Shared platform reduces paper use and streamlines approvals 

Over 900 staff can access their shifts easily and request leave at any time using Loop on their smartphones and there are over 300 logins to Loop per week and growing. “Staff can plan ahead when it comes to annual leave usage which also helps set the rosters up in advance,” says Amy McIntyre, eRostering Lead at NHS Golden Jubilee. 

In terms of improving staff working practices, the system has helped to reduce unplanned or ad hoc rota changes and for staff there is a better work-life balance for those able to plan ahead. 

The adoption of Optima and Loop has also laid the foundations for full integration with payroll systems and has helped to remove duplication.

“When we move away from the Scottish Standard Time System (SSTS) from March 2028, we will then automatically be able to integrate into Optima for payroll,” says Amy. “This means we will have one system doing everything.”

Progress Beyond Housekeeping 

Following the success with housekeeping, NHS Golden Jubilee has now completed the rollout of Optima to its porters team. This is another service that is highly inter-dependent. Building on lessons learned during the housekeeping implementation, the porters deployment was delivered smoothly and at pace. 

“Implementing porters was a natural next step for us, and it proved to be straightforward because of the experience we’d already gained with housekeeping.” 

Optima and Loop have also been successfully rolled out to staff at the Golden Jubilee Conference Hotel, extending adoption beyond core hospital services. As Scotland’s only NHS-owned hotel, it plays an integral role in supporting patients, staff, and the wider community, offering accommodation, on-call rooms, and serving as a dedicated events venue for the NHS, public sector, and commercial partners. The hotel is also Scotland’s only member of the International Association of Conference Centres and is accredited by Venues of Excellence and the Meetings Industry Association. 

Next Steps 

NHS Golden Jubilee is now deploying Optima and SafeCare to clinical areas from May, beginning with the nursing wards, as well as preparing for payroll integration, later to replace the legacy SSTS system, by moving all rostering and pay processing into a single integrated platform.  This marks the Health Board’s move toward a single digital platform across all staff groups. 

About the Health Board

NHS Golden Jubilee University National Hospital is a national centre for heart and lung services, orthopaedics, and elective surgery. It also includes the Golden Jubilee Conference Hotel, Scotland’s only NHS-owned hospitality venue.

About RLDatix 

RLDatix is the leading provider of workforce and governance solutions to the NHS and the health and care sector. Its workforce solutions support Health Boards and Trusts in improving visibility, reducing administrative burden, and creating more connected and efficient ways of working across clinical and non-clinical teams.