Transforming Community Nursing Efficiency with eCommunity
Summary
Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust has embedded eCommunity across 42 community nursing teams and specialist services to improve daily planning and caseload oversight. The system standardises realistic activity timings, protects non-patient activities such as handover and supervision, and gives real-time visibility of demand and capacity. Deferred care is logged and rescheduled with clear audit trails. Integrated reporting supports caseload reviews and workforce establishment decisions, with links to Allocate Optima and Rio. This has reduced administrative burden, supported safer staffing, and strengthened efficient, transparent care delivery.
The Challenge
Community nursing teams faced rising caseloads and limited resources. Planning was manual and inconsistent, sometimes leading to unrealistic workloads, missed handovers, and risks to staff wellbeing. Caseload visibility was poor, making it difficult to balance demand and capacity or provide reliable evidence for safer staffing reviews. Deferred care was difficult to track, while non-patient activities such as travel, supervision, and team meetings were not consistently protected. The Trust needed real-time oversight, realistic timings, and reporting that supported both day-to-day coordination and strategic planning.
The Solution
MPFT rolled out eCommunity across 42 teams, including children’s nursing and lymphoedema services. Senior nurses and coordinators use the system to plan daily work in line with staff availability, with activity timings standardised to reflect real practice. Non-patient activities such as breaks, meetings, and supervision are built into schedules to protect staff time. Integration with Allocate Optima ensures availability is accurate and prevents overloading, while deferred visits are logged and rescheduled with full oversight. Quarterly caseload reviews using open treatment reports give every team visibility of patients and activities, and real-time reporting supports safer staffing and demand and capacity analysis.
Results & Next Steps
Over the past 18 months, MPFT has seen clear benefits:
- Scheduling is streamlined and less reliant on manual spreadsheets, freeing clinical time.
- Staff wellbeing is supported by consistent planning of non-patient time and protection from unsafe workloads.
- Demand and capacity data is visible daily and reported at regular intervals, providing evidence for safer staffing.
- Deferred care is managed with audit trails, reducing patient risk, and open treatment reports ensure no care needs are missed.
Next steps include continuing integration with Allocate Optima and Rio, completing trials with Community Matrons, and considering wider adoption where appropriate. Quarterly caseload reviews will remain central, supported by ongoing sharing of learning on timings, deferred care management, and system use.
