Newham PCT

I run the District Nursing service for Newham Primary Care Trust. We use Slivers-of-Time Workers for admin and clerical work. Sometimes they’re taking phone calls from patients who are calling to make appointments or cancel an appointment. Sometimes a call can be urgent: if there’s a blocked catheter for instance. There’s also data entry work to be done, one of our nurses will typically see 10 patients a day. They record all the details and those have to be entered into our system as soon as possible.

Other than that we have an ongoing need for filing and we currently have an archiving project. A Slivers seller is sorting out-of-date records and boxing them up for storage. We use Slivers workers partly to cover gaps caused by sickness but also on a “try before you buy” basis. If they’re not right for us we just don’t book them again. I have one chap whose booking has been rolled on for three months. He’s very good.

We have five bases around the borough where our admin work gets done. Anyone who works for us has to go through a detailed induction and must then sign a confidentiality agreement. That includes Slivers workers. I look carefully at the CV’s of available sellers to check that they’re compatible with our requirements.