For Clinicians
Case Studies
In 2024, the Critical Care department at Guys and St Thomas’s was operating five different rotas for 85 doctors, with 78 full-time equivalents. But the system they were using to manage the rota – “held together with post-it notes, Excel spreadsheets and forwarded emails” – was not fit for purpose.
As well as being an administrative nightmare, the rolling rota pattern didn’t fit the needs of their doctors:
• Unsuitable patterns for those working less-than-full-time (LTFT)
• Frequent gaps forced over-recruitment, increasing costs
• Clinicians struggled to secure study or annual leave
• Swaps were common
• Quality of life was suffering
Dan Taylor, Critical Care consultant and Resident Doctor Co-Lead explained: “Everything was a compromise - either the trainees lost out, or we did at the expense of having to fill those gaps with locums.”
Recognising the need for a fundamental shift, the team partnered with Lantum In-Genius™ to change things–starting with their most complex rota.
In-Genius™ took on the departmental requirements and each clinician’s working preferences, annual leave and study requests, and delivered an optimal rota, completely tailored to them. Dan noted that the team “were really impressed with how tailored and bespoke we could make the requests.”
£30,000 saved in six months
In the In-Genius™ rota gaps were significantly reduced. This was mainly due to the fact that LTFT staff were rostered efficiently, instead of forced into a fixed rota pattern. By reducing those gaps and eliminating over-recruitment, the department saved £30,000 in the first six months.
More leave approved. Happier doctors.
100% of study leave requests and 98% of annual leave requests were approved in the rota. For the first time, resident doctors in the department had certainty over their schedule and were able to plan work to fit their lives, instead of the other way round. Intensive Care Consultant Francesco Vasquez commented: “We can allow doctors to empower themselves to become the masters of their own rota.”
Less admin
With less need to rework the rota, fewer leave and swap requests to review, and fewer locums to organise, the Resident Doctor Co-Leads have described In-Genius™ as a “huge time saver”. As Dan said, “If the resident doctors are content, everything else falls into place.”
For ST7 Intensive Care Trainee, Dr Jennie Lewis, the move from rolling rotas to bespoke, personalised rotas with In-Genius™ had immediate benefits.
Returning at 80% after maternity leave, she previously had to swap every Thursday shift on her rolling rota to fit around childcare–and there were inevitably occasions where it wasn’t possible. With In-Genius™, Jennie was given every Thursday, as well as Wednesday nights, off–eliminating the stress and financial cost of organising childcare.
On that same rota, her request for five-weeks of consecutive annual leave was also approved, giving her the chance to take a dream trip to Australia.
In 2024, Whittington Health NHS Trust were forecasting a spend of £44 million on temporary staffing. They were also facing increasing complexity in rostering due to the growth of Less-Than-Full-Time (LTFT) working, and increasing staff dissatisfaction. They set out to tackle all of these issues through a transformative co-development partnership with Lantum In-Genius™.
In-Genius™ evaluated thousands of possible rota combinations to seek out the optimal workforce deployment pattern. It balanced leave requests, contractual rules, fatigue limits, fairness scores and departmental demand to build safe and compliant schedules (all validated by In-Check).
£624K savings in year one
In-Genius™ rotas delivered £624,000 cash-releasing savings through reduced medical bank and agency spend in year one. This was validated by the Trust’s finance team through a like-for-like comparison between the original rolling rota and the In-Genius™ rota.
Over two years, these savings are estimated to grow to around £2M. This was made possible due to a significant reduction in rota gaps which would previously have been filled with temporary staff.
40% fewer gaps
In-Genius achieved a reduction in rota gaps through more efficient deployment of the workforce – especially LTFT staff. The results demonstrate that many shortages are due to efficiency in rostering, rather than staff shortages. As one rota lead put it, “We’ve learned we were never just short of staff — we were short of information.”
Reducing burnout and improving satisfaction
As well as improving gaps and costs, In-Genius™ rotas also improved rotas for staff. By creating personalised schedules based around individual clinician leave requests and working preferences, staff had more say in when they worked, and were more likely to get the time off they wanted – with 98% of all leave requests approved.
Dr Charlotte Hopkins, Chief Medical Officer, commented: “We’ve seen how this technology can transform the working lives of our resident doctors.”
Creating fairer rotas
In-Genius™ rotas also improved recovery times between long days and night shifts by 35%, helping doctors to feel better and work more safely.
In March 2024, the median spacing between long days was seven days, with an average of one day between night shifts. By September 2025, long-day spacing improved to 12 days and recovery after long or night shifts increased to 20 days.
By building rotas that are safe, equitable and personalised, Whittington improved morale, predictability and rest periods — all proven contributors to reducing burnout and improving retention.
Terry Whittle, CFO, said: “Lantum has given us transparency we’ve never had before. It’s helped us meet our cost-improvement plan without cutting services, while giving us total visibility of workforce capacity. It’s demystified AI — showing how it can deliver real, cash-releasing savings and a better experience for staff.”
Following Whittington’s success, eight other NHS Trusts are now piloting the same system, with early data showing similar improvements. The success of the trial now forms part of NHS England’s wider conversation on AI in workforce planning — a model for how digital innovation can drive both efficiency and humanity in healthcare.
Rota managers at Evelina Children’s Hospital were facing difficulties in managing the rotas for their resident doctors.
Most rotas were understaffed by an average of 2.5 full-time clinicians, and trying to fill shifts while accommodating less-than-full time staff, individual working requirements and training requests created a significant admin burden. Rotas were often not finalised by the required deadlines, leaving trainees in limbo about their schedules and unable to plan for holidays, childcare, and their social lives.
The Paediatrics team decided to trial In-Genius™ to solve these problems and piloted it on three rotas with 35 clinicians.
Rota managers and trainees submitted all their needs to In-Genius™, including:
• Trainee working preferences
• Trainee annual leave requests
• Training requirements
• Occupational health needs
• 15 departmental, rota-specific rules
• Regulatory and contractual rules
In-Genius™ then ran hundreds of thousands of calculations to seek out the optimal pattern to deliver on those requests.
The final In-Genius™ rota managed to do what would have been almost impossible manually.
Using the same number of staff, it filled an additional 268 shifts - or 3,000 hours of clinical time – compared to the previous rolling rota. That represented an 80% reduction in gaps, which translated to a £200K saving on temporary staffing.
It also created personalised schedules for each clinician, delivering on 100% of annual leave and study leave requests and allocating 5.6 more training shifts per full-time clinician than the rolling rota.
Having a say over the shifts they prefer to work also gave trainees a morale boost, helping them find balance between work and home. One resident doctor said: “I have orchestra practice on Tuesday, and it’s always been quite difficult to play regularly because of my shifts. In-Genius™ now gives me most Tuesday’s off - it’s been really nice to have something outside of work I can commit to and that I enjoy.
The rota co-ordinators also benefited. They saved six hours a week on rota administration, which would previously have been spent fielding requests and filling gaps. With the rota agreed and suitable for everyone from the start of rotation, clinical time is freed up, and the day-to-day stresses are reduced.