Care Home DigiHive
CareHires.

Welcome to CareHires
Agency Management Platform.

UK care providers are already saving time, cutting cost and streamlining their operations with CareHires.

Let's work out the true cost of your next emergency shift.

Shift economics · Total Shift Cost

The agency invoice is not the real cost of a shift.

Premium, spillover, admin and continuity all stack on top of the rate you see. Put in your own numbers and watch the true cost of an emergency shift appear.

Trusted by 1,200 care services and 1,300 agencies nationwide.
True cost · per emergency shift
£452
£176 of it never appears on the invoice.
Invoice
£277
Hidden
£176

Your shift

Defaults reflect a typical 12-hour emergency nursing shift.
Direct rate
£19.22
12
The hidden layers
19%
2
£17.00
20
70
1.5
£23.00
£20
Your scale
319
Total Shift Cost · per shift
£452
£176 hidden beyond the £277 invoice rate.
Direct rate
£277
Premium
£53
Spillover
£34
Admin
£34
Continuity
£55
Manual today
£452
Full cost per emergency shift, managed by hand.
With CareHires
£286
Same shift, filled and managed through the platform.
£166
The cost of staying manual, every emergency shift.
£52,945
A year, at your shift volume.
Indicative model based on the CareHires Total Shift Cost framework. Unreclaimable VAT alone accounts for £14,715 a year at this volume. Your figures will vary with local rates and rostering. Book a review →
What the number means

Five layers make up every shift

The invoice only shows the first one. The other four are real spend that rarely gets counted, so it rarely gets managed.

1

Direct rate

The agency hourly rate across the shift, plus VAT most care providers cannot reclaim.

2

Premium load

Nights, weekends and short-notice uplifts that push the effective rate well above the headline.

3

Spillover

Handover overruns, late arrivals and the perm-staff overtime that quietly covers the gaps.

4

Admin

Manager and coordinator time spent sourcing, booking, checking and reconciling a single shift.

5

Continuity

Re-induction, unfamiliarity and the compliance risk carried when faces keep changing.

How it works

From hidden cost to managed cost

CareHires collapses the layers that don't add care value, so more of every pound reaches the bedside.

STEP 01

See the true number

Model your Total Shift Cost across all five layers, not just the invoice line. Nothing to install.

STEP 02

Fill through one platform

1,300 agencies compete for your shifts in one place, with rates, compliance and booking handled together.

STEP 03

Cut the hidden layers

Less admin, less spillover, better continuity, so the managed cost lands far below the manual one.

Questions

About the model

The model reflects the CareHires Total Shift Cost framework, built from real agency invoices and the operational time care teams spend around every booking. The defaults describe a typical 12-hour emergency nursing shift, and every input is yours to change.

Most care providers cannot reclaim VAT, so the 20% is a genuine cost they carry. At the default settings that is roughly £46 a shift, and it compounds quickly across a year.

No. It is an indicative comparison based on the reductions services typically see in admin, spillover and continuity once shifts are filled and managed in one place. A short review gives you a figure grounded in your own data.

Any shift filled at short notice through an agency rather than from your permanent roster. These carry the highest premium and the most hidden cost, which is why they matter most.

Your number, grounded in your data

Get your Total Shift Cost report.

We’ll email your full breakdown — bring your own rates and volumes, and we’ll walk through where the hidden layers are hiding in a 30-minute review.

Trusted by 1,200 services and 1,300 agencies.
We’ll also email your Total Shift Cost breakdown. No spam, ever.