The on-call support service for care teams
When someone calls in sick at 6am, OnCall Care shows you every gap, every person at risk, and exactly who can cover. Fill rota gaps with the right people, not just available people.
UK-hosted · CQC-inspection ready · no long contracts
A carer calls in sick and the on-call manager starts dialling from a spreadsheet, from memory, one number at a time, while the visit clock runs down.
The first person to say yes may lack the PEG training, have never met the client, live 40 minutes away, or already be over safe working hours.
When CQC asks how last month's gaps were covered and why, the answer lives in call logs, texts and memory, not in anything you can show.
One screen for the whole incident, from sickness call to signed-off handover
Log the sickness and every affected shift becomes a visible gap, with the people at risk flagged and a countdown to each visit.
Send cover requests to ranked candidates by push notification, watch seen / declined / accepted update live, and assign in one tap.
Open items roll into an auto-drafted handover the next on-call person accepts, with both signatures timestamped.
Every decision, decline reason and escalation is recorded as it happens. Inspection evidence with zero extra admin.
Every suggestion explains itself
OnCall Care scores every candidate on verified skills, familiarity with the person, distance, contracted hours, availability and restrictions. Then it tells you why, in plain English, so the decision stays yours and the reasoning goes in the audit log.
- Hard blocks for restrictions and missing required skills
- Warnings, with the numbers, for working-time and fatigue risk
- Continuity protected: familiar faces rank first
"Sarah is a strong match: PEG verified, worked this package 14 times, available from 18:00, already nearby, under her weekly hour limit."
Rotas that build themselves, and show you the gaps before they bite
Set each person's weekly pattern once: day, night or 24-hour slots, single or double-up. Assign a named carer, rotate a team, or leave slots open for matching.
Future weeks are generated automatically every Sunday from your patterns. Change the pattern and the future rota follows; what's already published never moves without you.
A client who needs two people at all times shows 1/2 staffed the moment one slot is filled, on the planner itself, so double-up visits never quietly go out half-covered.
Managers get a full availability and coverage grid on desktop. Staff scroll weeks ahead on their phone and see exactly who they're working alongside on shared visits.
Staff set overtime availability on their phone: dates, nights, weekends, maximum extra hours. The match panel sees it instantly, so nobody rings people who can't come.
Familiar faces matter. Continuity is measured per person, warned on every rota change, and reported so you can evidence it to families and commissioners.
A live competency matrix: verified skills, evidence documents, expiry reminders. Expired training visibly blocks matching before it becomes a safeguarding issue.
Cover requests your team actually answers
One push notification with the shift, the skills, the rate and why they were matched. Accept or decline in two taps, with a reason. Today's rota, availability and expiring training all live in the same app, for iOS and Android.
Team leaders get an extra on-call tab: gaps, matches, sickness logging and handover from their pocket. Everything sits behind a PIN with Face ID or fingerprint unlock, because this data is confidential.
Numbers your board and your inspector both ask for
Gaps, sickness trends, overtime spend, skill coverage, continuity, on-call response times and cover outcomes. Filter by branch, export for evidence.
Illustrative figures from a pilot deployment.
The everyday people admin, handled in the same place
Cover is only half the job. OnCall Care also runs the HR basics a care business lives on, all feeding the same availability and matching engine.
Staff request annual, sick or unpaid leave from their phone; managers approve in one click with a note back. Approved leave blocks the rota automatically, so nobody is scheduled onto a beach.
Every sickness logged in the support service becomes an absence record with a timeline, so patterns and trends build from day one and show up in reports.
Staff clock in and out from the app, checked by GPS against each client's location with a radius you set. Out-of-range events are flagged, never blocked, and a missed clock-in alerts your managers within 15 minutes.
Publish a policy and everyone is asked to read and accept it in the app, each acceptance timestamped per person, so "I never saw that policy" stops being a conversation.
A live skills matrix with evidence documents, verification and expiry reminders. Verified training feeds the matching engine; expired training visibly blocks assignment.
Staff log mileage between visits, prefilled at 45p per mile, or an out-of-pocket expense. Approvals notify them instantly and sit ready for payroll.
Simple per-carer pricing
Start with the on-call layer alongside your current rota. No setup fee, no long contract.
- Support service & incident log
- Smart matching with explanations
- Cover requests & mobile app
- Handover & audit trail
- Everything in On-Call
- Full rota builder & templates
- Skills matrix & expiry tracking
- Full reporting suite
- Multi-branch & group reporting
- Payroll & care-system integrations
- Custom retention & DPIA support
- Dedicated onboarding
Questions providers ask us
Do we have to replace our current rota system?
No. Most providers start with the on-call layer running alongside their existing rota, then move scheduling across when they're ready.
Does the system assign staff automatically?
No. It suggests and explains; a person always makes the decision. Restrictions and missing required skills are hard blocks that cannot be assigned past silently.
Where is our data held and who can see it?
UK/EU hosting with strict per-organisation isolation, role-based access and row-level security. Sensitive notes are permission-controlled and every access is audit-logged. GDPR-aware workflows and DPIA documentation are included.
Does GPS clock-in track staff all day?
No. Location is checked once, at the moment someone clocks in or out, against the client's address and a radius you control (10 to 500 metres). There is no background tracking, and an out-of-range clock-in is flagged for review rather than blocked.
How does OnCall Care compare to BrightHR or Birdie?
We keep an honest, regularly updated comparison, including the things other platforms do that we don't yet, on ourcomparison page.
We say "service users", not "clients". Can we change the wording?
Yes. Clients, service users, people supported or packages: pick your term once and the whole product, including the mobile app, uses it.
See your worst rota day, handled well
Bring a real scenario: last month's hardest gap. We'll walk it through the support service live, with your terminology and your shift types.
30 minutes · no obligation · we'll never contact your staff