Case study by Whittington Health and Lantum
Across the NHS, junior doctors describe rota systems that leave them exhausted, disempowered and stretched beyond safe limits with billions being spent on temporary staff to plug the holes.
Despite years of reforms, most resident-doctor rotas are still created manually in spreadsheets. They must reconcile hundreds of constraints — safe-working hours, rest breaks, training time, Less than Full Time contracts — yet rarely take account of doctors’ preferences or wellbeing.
Rota instability, lack of control and unmanageable workloads are key drivers of unhappiness among trainees. The BMA’s 2024 fatigue briefing warns that ‘rota gaps, long shifts and inadequate rest’ are directly harming staff health and patient safety.
What is more, a key driver to costs on temporary staffing is sub-optimal deployment of staff. With more combinations of the Resident Doctor rotas than there are atoms in the observable universe, it is no wonder that manual approaches leave more gaps than are necessary.
A fresh approach at Whittington Health
In 2023, Whittington Health NHS Trust set out to tackle high medical bank and agency spend, rising staff dissatisfaction, and increasing complexity caused by the growth in less-than-full-time (LTFT) working. The Trust partnered with Lantum, a UK health-tech company, to co-develop In-Genius, an AI-powered rota generator designed with clinicians.
Instead of relying on static Excel sheets, the system evaluates thousands of possible rota combinations in minutes and seeks out the most optmised workforce deployment pattern — balancing leave requests, contractual rules, fatigue limits, fairness scores and departmental demand to build safe, compliant schedules. It integrates with In-Check (formerly DRS), Lantum’s compliance and payroll platform used by more than 50 NHS Trusts, allowing rotas to be automatically validated and paid, even for LTFT staff.
The results
Within its first year, the partnership delivered measurable benefits:
- £624,000 in real, in-year one, cash-releasing savings on reduced medical bank and agency spend — validated by the Trust’s finance team through like-for-like comparison of old and AI-generated rotas with c £2m estimated savings over two years.
- Shift gaps reduced by over 40%.
- 98% of leave requests honoured, compared with roughly half under traditional rotas.
- Six hours of consultant time saved each week on rota administration.
- Better Recovery and Predictability: 35% more recovery time after nights and long days. In March 2024, the median spacing between long days was seven days and just one day between nights. By September 2025, long-day spacing improved to 12 days and recovery after long or night shifts > 20 days.
- Fairer Shift Allocations: Shifts more fairly spread – This boosted morale, reduced burnout risk and reinforced trust in the rota.
“Lantum has given us transparency we’ve never had before,” said Terry Whittle, CFO. “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.”
“I cannot tell you how useful this is now everyone is part-time,” added Dr Jane Simpson, Consultant Paediatrician. “It’s an absolute game-changer.”
Why it matters
The Whittington’s experience shows that many rota gaps — often assumed to signal understaffing — are avoidable. Analysis suggests that around 40% of apparent vacancies could be closed through more intelligent deployment of existing staff. 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.
For a Trust forecasting £44 million in temporary-staffing costs, the savings are significant. Nationally, similar results could make a meaningful dent in the £6.2 billion the NHS spends each year on agency and bank staff.
What’s next
Following Whittington’s success, eight other NHS Trusts are now piloting the same system, with early data showing similar improvements. As one rota lead put it, “We’ve learned we were never just short of staff — we were short of information.”
The project 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.
Contact for follow-up:
Melissa Morris, CEO
Whittington Health and Lantum can provide validated data comparisons, clinician interviews, and finance documentation on request.
