Healthcare workforce management platform Lantum has raised 拢11.4 million to reduce the pressure on NHS staff.
The funding round led by Finch Capital, with Piton Capital, Samos and US-based Cedars-Sinai Hospital also participating.聽
Over 30,000 clinical and non-clinical staff, and 50% of GP practices, now use Lantum to keep essential healthcare services running in England.
Despite being the fifth largest employer in the world, the NHS remains heavily reliant on exorbitant recruitment agencies and fragmented staff-led initiatives such as WhatsApp, spreadsheets and messaging groups to resolve staff shortages and schedules.聽
Lantum aims to transform this with a goal to reduce the NHS鈥檚 拢4 billion-a-year spend on temporary staffing.
During the pandemic, Lantum鈥檚 intelligent management platform has been the backbone to primary care, offering a powerful scheduling software that can also rapidly locate clinicians to fill shift gaps as well as setting up more than 150 clinics across the country to deliver over 13.6m doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.聽
Lantum was founded in 2012 by Melissa Morris, an NHS Accelerator Fellow and previously a management consultant at McKinsey & Co., alongside Dr Ishani Patel, a GP and HarnessCare EHub NWL digital accelerator clinical lead.
鈥淭he NHS is in crisis,鈥� said CEO Morris. 鈥淗ealthcare professionals are unable to聽 meet the current demand for care. Staff shortages are high, backlogs of patients, built up over the pandemic, are at dangerous levels, and front-line staff are experiencing extreme burnout like never before.
鈥淥ur collective focus must be on alleviating the current pressure in a way that addresses issues with clinician quality of life.聽
鈥淲e made it possible for thousands of healthcare professionals to take control of their schedules and find and book work flexibly during the pandemic, meaning that six million more appointments have taken place. We have helped deliver millions of vaccine doses by offering our scheduling software to hundreds of clinics, and have helped bring retired doctors back into the fold to fight the virus.聽
鈥淭oday鈥檚 cash injection will enable us to go further. Our booking volumes have more than doubled in the past 12 months, with 14,000 more clinicians onboarded. It鈥檚 essential Lantum has the capabilities to meet this demand; we need to significantly drive recruitment and bolster our digital offering.鈥�
Aman Ghei, partner at Finch Capital, commented: 鈥淟antum has had a momentous year. Their staff count has doubled in the last year alone, as they work to help those on the frontline of this pandemic. Digital transformation must be at the forefront of the NHS.聽
鈥淲ith 17 Integrated Care Systems placed across the UK, and significant capital to grow, Lantum is well-positioned to continue to deliver solutions that do better by the NHS. For its staff and for its patients.鈥�