As pressures on the health and social care workforce continue to grow, understanding and responding to staff experience in real time has become increasingly important for delivering safe, sustainable care.
In this instalment of our Meet the Innovator series, we explore the journey behind RateMyShift, a nurse-led digital platform designed to capture how staff are feeling at the end of each shift. Created in response to the everyday challenges of managing large, fast-paced teams, the platform aims to give staff a simple, confidential way to share their experience and enable earlier, more proactive support.
Founders Olivia Crossing and Annie Taylor reflect on the challenges that inspired the innovation, their experience of navigating the NHS innovation landscape, and what they have learned about supporting staff wellbeing through timely insight and compassionate leadership.
Please tell us about RateMyShift and the challenge it answers
Olivia (Sister, University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust and Co-Founder of Worksights LTD) : We all know that happy staff perform better and deliver better care. That’s why so much time and money has gone into compassionate leadership training across the NHS. I know — I’ve completed many of them myself. They help, but they miss something vital.
You can be a good manager and still not truly know how your team is coping day to day. Not because you don’t care, but because you’re managing 60 colleagues on a fast-paced ward that’s constantly changing. You only see a fraction of staff each shift, and there’s rarely time for meaningful check-ins. The everyday moments that matter most often go unnoticed.
So I’d ask any NHS manager:
- Do you really know how each team member is coping?
- Do you check in equally?
- And what evidence do you have?
Annie (Surgical Matron, Somerset NHS Foundation Trust and Co-Founder of Worksights LTD): Even when I did have time for 1:1s, I relied on people coming to me — and many don’t feel able to ask for help until things escalated. Small issues would build up, then snowball. That’s the real problem, we don’t have a way to understand how staff are feeling in real time and the impact is felt everywhere.
For staff, there’s no simple, safe way to share how a shift really felt. Small stresses go unheard, confidence dips, engagement drops. For managers, support becomes reactive. Early warning signs are missed and attention often goes to the loudest voices, not the quietest needs. For organisations, insight comes too late — annual surveys, exit interviews, sickness data. By the time issues are visible, staff are already burned out or leaving.
At system level, workforce data is retrospective. With turnover around 10%, thousands of people leave before survey results are even published. Leaders are trying to support staff without real-time insight.
That gap is why we created RateMyShift.
Olivia: RateMyShift is an award-winning, nurse-led digital platform that captures real-time staff experience across health and social care. After each shift, staff are simply asked: “How do you feel after your shift today?” They choose a face and can leave confidential feedback.
If someone reports a difficult shift, their manager is quietly prompted to check in. Managers see trends early, not months later. Organisations finally have a live view of workforce wellbeing — not just annual snapshots.
Built by nurses and co-created with frontline teams, RateMyShift gives staff a safe voice, makes support fairer, and gives managers the confidence and evidence to act early instead of firefighting.
When staff feel heard and supported, everything improves: engagement, retention, sickness, recruitment and agency spend.
For me, it’s not a nice-to-have. It’s a no-brainer.
How has Health Innovation West of England been involved with your journey?
Olivia: Our innovation journey has been heavily supported by the West of England Health Innovation Network, through our selection for the Commercialisation Academy (2024). This provided vital mentorship, (business development), strategic guidance about how to scale, incredible opportunities to network and collaborate with other innovators, and to gain access to conversations with some of the people who make purchasing decisions.
Annie: We were also very fortunate to meet our current tech partner at the Commercialisation Academy. We have continued to access regular support and guidance, including with grant applications. The Health Innovation Network have also supported us as we work towards our upcoming trial with an NHS organisation – specifically with advising on and sourcing, independent evaluation.
What are the next steps for RateMyShift?
Olivia: We are about to launch a post pilot version two of the product after small scale, short market research pilots. We have support from an independent evaluator. We were supported by the Health Innovation Network to collaborate with our proposed users, at all levels of the pilot organisation, to design an evaluation framework.
Our aim for the year-long trial is to gather tangible evidence of the impact and return on investment that using RateMyShift can offer individual colleagues, teams, and organisations.
We are planning to extend our reach by working with social care organisations, including micro providers, domiciliary care organisations, and bedded care providers.
What’s your greatest piece of learning from innovating in the NHS?
Olivia: Patience! Navigating systems and processes and identifying the right people to engage with at every stage, for support and progression.
To keep going, network and believe in your WHY.
Annie: I would add that I have found that the NHS is full of innovators, healthcare colleagues naturally innovate in their day-to-day roles. We have to navigate delivering outstanding, personalised care within tightly governed (rightly so), parameters. The only way to do that is to innovate.
The challenge comes due to a lack of formal structure/routes to develop innovative ideas. I think that many organisations feel they give colleagues the freedom to innovate – but there is little support to move beyond very local service improvements/bright ideas forums. Good innovation should, and must, be shared – by scaling, sharing, commercialising. The systems to do this in the NHS just aren’t in place, and in fact, there are often obstacles. Organisations are often so operationally busy/focussed, that the space to think longer term and include innovation strategy into ‘business as usual’ just is not there. The thing is, innovation is going to be essential as we build and develop future proof health and social care services, and it is the colleagues working in these sectors who have the innovative ideas needed to deliver.
What is the best part of your job?
Olivia: Depends on which one!
Ultimately it comes down to the fact that I love nursing and I love helping others. As a manager I enjoy supporting a team to reach their potential and coming up with solutions or ideas to support this.
Annie: Nursing is a privilege. Every day we are given the opportunity to touch lives and effect experience and outcomes at some of the most difficult, intimate and private moments of a life span. That’s quite a privilege, and quite a responsibility. Supporting nurses to nurse is what drives me. Watching people develop their confidence and skills and navigate everything that caring comes with. .
With RateMyShift this isn’t too dissimilar, I get to meet and coach fellow healthcare professionals and people that care about the impact they make and hopefully make it easier and more enjoyable for them by getting them to release their potential and support others.
What are your hopes for the future?
Olivia: That RateMyShift is in multiple organisation and care environments and beyond to support everyone! To contribute to change for nurses and support great nurses and healthcare professionals to stay in their jobs. Not because they have to but because they want to.
What are your three pieces of advice for budding health innovators?
Olivia:
- Keep going
- Network
- Trust in your potential
Annie:
- Be tenacious, or find a tenacious business partner like Liv 🙂
- Balance
- Enjoy every opportunity!
You can find out more about RateMyShift on their website or by contacting Olivia on Olivia.Crossing@ratemyshift.app
Posted on January 6, 2026 by Olivia Crossing and Annie Taylor, Co-Founders, RateMyShift
