Florence wants to end the care home phone chase

An empty care shift has a way of filling a manager's day. There are calls to make, rates to check, credentials to chase and, eventually, a timesheet to approve. Florence has built its business around that administrative chain. The interesting part is how far the chain now stretches: a company that began connecting workers directly with vacancies also sells tools for managing other agencies.

That is a revealing development in a market where a successful booking solves only today's problem. Tomorrow brings another rota, another absence and another invoice. Florence wants a recurring place in that routine. Its pitch to care providers increasingly concerns control over the whole workforce, with temporary staffing as one part of the package.

The problem arrived by telephone

Charles Armitage knew the irritation from the worker's side. As a doctor taking locum shifts, he dealt with recruitment agencies that could be expensive for the NHS and frustrating for clinicians. In his account, workers were sent to places they did not want to go, while basic administration remained cumbersome. More telephone activity did not necessarily produce a better match.

His co-founder, Dan Blake, brought experience from the care-provider side, including chairing a housing charity that looked after nursing homes. They began working together in 2016; Florence filled its first marketplace shift in 2017. The proposition gave professionals more say over when and where they worked, while helping organisations find people to cover gaps.

The worker app makes that proposition tangible. Nurses, care assistants and support workers can inspect opportunities and choose shifts, with the advertised rate visible before booking. Florence's App Store description also highlights information about workplaces and reviews from fellow professionals. For someone organising work around the rest of life, knowing the destination and rate is a useful starting point.

Armitage's own career change supplies an unusually candid footnote. He had wanted to become a plastic surgeon, attracted by the combination of art and practical medicine. In a 2023 interview, he said he had come to recognise how much he enjoyed creative work and calculated risks. Building a company gave that instinct somewhere else to go.

The agency is now inside the software

Florence's present-day offering accommodates a more complicated world than a direct marketplace alone. Agency Manager lets a care group organise external suppliers, set rates, check worker information and monitor bookings across locations. Florence markets access to more than 450 vetted agencies. A provider can therefore use the software to coordinate staffing relationships beyond Florence's own worker supply.

That changes the commercial conversation. A manager may already have agencies worth keeping, along with others that are expensive or unreliable. A central team needs to know who is being booked, at what rate, and whether local decisions follow group policy. Software that makes those choices visible has a different job from a recruiter trying to fill the next vacancy.

The shift is visible in the company's public chronology: Florence expanded its agency-management and neutral-vendor offering in January 2024. Read alongside today's product range, it suggests a broader bet on coordinating the market. The distinction matters because providers can improve how they buy temporary labour without expecting every existing supplier relationship to disappear.

Three customers, three different numbers

Mariposa Care offers the clearest account of how this works. Across eight homes, a relatively small central team was wrestling with multiple agencies and inconsistent visibility. It adopted Agency Manager, sending vacancies to a tiered list of vetted suppliers. Florence's published case study reports up to 17% lower agency costs against historical trends, all panel-filled shifts within agreed rates, and no bookings outside the system.

The operational detail is more useful than the percentage. Mariposa involved home managers early. Its account links their enthusiasm for the system to subsequent adoption across the group. The lesson is straightforward: a central rate card has limited force if the person making an urgent booking goes around it. Getting the daily users involved belongs in the implementation plan.

We Care's story concerns a larger group of 35 locations. As it expanded, agency administration became fragmented, including invoicing and compliance tracking. Florence helped standardise the agency panel and simplify invoicing. The case study reports a 12% reduction specifically in agency hourly charge rates. It also describes Florence staff visiting every home during setup, a decidedly human contribution to a software rollout.

At Hightown, the aim included reducing the number of suppliers. Its supported-living operation introduced Florence's temporary staffing tools across 50 sites, with the published account reporting a 33% decrease in agencies used. Managers could post and approve shifts while away from their desks. Business process manager Gemma Mackay supplied the memorable verdict:

“We call them the Uber of the care staffing world.”Gemma Mackay / Hightown

These are customer accounts hosted by the vendor, and their measures deserve to stay separate. A smaller supplier list is not automatically a smaller wage bill. A lower hourly rate is not necessarily a lower total staffing budget if more hours are purchased. Buyers can copy the discipline behind the stories: agree supplier rules, involve managers and examine actual bookings.

Follow the shift all the way to payday

Bank Manager begins with an economically sensible question: can someone already connected to the organisation take the shift? In this context, a staff bank is a pool of workers available for flexible work. Florence lets providers offer vacancies internally with configurable priorities before seeking outside cover. The intended benefit is less agency dependence while giving existing workers access to opportunities.

Rota addresses the schedule itself. The wider suite includes recurring scheduling patterns, leave handling and time-and-attendance records. HR & Payroll brings employee details and compliance documents together, with reminders for renewals and links between approved hours and payroll. The attraction is fewer occasions when a manager must move the same information between separate systems.

The payroll documentation shows why that work becomes fiddly. Florence supports several export formats: one includes calculated pay, while others send hours for a payroll system to process. It also distinguishes timesheet records from later approved adjustments. A quarter-hour correction needs an audit trail. These are small administrative details with a very personal destination: somebody's pay.

There are clear conditions for this approach to deliver. Internal-first booking needs an available internal workforce. Agency controls need suppliers willing to work through them. Connected records need accurate information and managers who maintain it. That is an inference from the workflow, not a reported Florence failure. An app can distribute a vacancy quickly; it cannot create an appropriately skilled person who is free to take it.

The classroom has its own till

Florence Academy extends the relationship beyond shifts. Its catalogue includes care-specific subjects such as safeguarding, dementia, infection prevention and record keeping. For organisations, the training platform can assign learning and track completion across staff. It gives the company another reason to remain part of a provider's routine between urgent staffing requests.

For individuals, the distinction between learning and certification matters. Florence's April 2026 help article says learning is free, while downloadable certificates cost £8.99, plus VAT where applicable. Working through Florence or accessing training through an employer changes the arrangement. A free course is therefore not always a free downloadable credential; learners should check the route they are using.

For employers, software does not remove responsibility for keeping training organised. Academy's organisational terms place account management, course assignments and monitoring on the customer. The practical advantage is a shared record and less chasing. Someone still has to decide what each person needs and follow up when the work is incomplete.

A bigger business than the next booking

The funding history shows the scale of the ambition. Florence announced a $35 million Series B in June 2022, led by AXA Venture Partners, with Roo Capital and SEEK Investments participating. It said the money would support product expansion, international markets and services beyond elderly care. Its timeline subsequently records launches in France in November 2022 and Canada in February 2023.

The business now spans staffing services, workforce software and training. Current software pricing is tailored to the modules selected and usage, with setup, implementation and ongoing support included without an additional fee. That pricing structure lets a provider start from its operational needs. The free worker app should not be confused with the cost of staffing a care home.

Florence sits between several alternatives: traditional agencies, neutral-vendor services, individual rota or learning tools, and general HR systems. Its distinctive proposition is their combination around care work. Its 2024 Tech Canal partnership sought to support adoption in the NHS; a July 2026 interview with Armitage continued to emphasise technology for the social-care workforce.

The persuasive version of Florence's story lives in the routine. A manager sees the agreed rate before booking. An existing worker gets offered the gap. An approved timesheet reaches the right payroll file. Those are useful changes precisely because they repeat. Florence's larger ambition depends on making that ordinary working day easier enough that providers keep coming back.