North and East London CSU (NEL) has partnered with leading cloud and digital services provider, ANS, to assist with the tracking and coordination of the Royal Free Hospital’s 15,000 staff during the Covid-19 pandemic.

ANS worked with NEL to build a mobile-friendly application using the Microsoft Power Platform which works by storing employee information on the common data service which feeds into the application. This allows staff to easily log in and notify the hospital if they are, or are not, able to work. If a member of staff is unable to work, they can instantly notify their manager using the app, selecting the reason, whether their absence is due to annual leave, sickness due to non Covid-19 related symptoms, sickness with symptoms of Covid-19, or self-isolating if a family member is showing symptoms.

If an employee is self-isolating because they are showing signs of coronavirus, they’ll be asked to fill in a quick form about their condition as well as any other details they think are relevant to share. The employee can also tell their manager how long they will be self-isolating for using the app.

All the data inputted by employees can be visualised in the managers portal via a Power BI dashboard. Using bespoke filters, managers are able to see the number of coronavirus cases in certain locations and the number of staff available in that location to help. They can also determine what resources are needed where, and how many tests have been carried out in any given location.

James Davis, Head of Innovation at NEL commented, “We needed a free-to-use CRM tool that could be used to give us clear and consistent advice about what to do or how to approach a variety of scenarios that arose as a result of the spread of coronavirus. I reached out to my network on LinkedIn for help and ANS responded.

“Their free Power App solution has given us the ability to deliver consistent and unified messaging to every member of staff which is absolutely vital when it comes to managing a response to a world-wide pandemic, especially in an acute hospital. The application has also enabled us to deliver a better duty of care to our patients, removing any risk that may have been present as a result of oversights that may have occurred from not having had this level of detail available to us.

“ANS put everything aside to help our NHS hospital trust and I am truly thankful for their rapid response, expertise and dedication to supporting us through this challenging time.”

Andy Barrow, CTO at ANS added, “During this challenging time, we wanted to offer support to the NHS in any way we could. By working with Microsoft and leveraging the Power Platform, we were able to build an effective solution in just 3 days and at no cost to NEL. I am delighted we have been able to play our part in helping to ease some of pressure and I look forward to working with NEL in future to help them expand the solution further.”