Best apps for nurses: the help that’s just a click away
Smartphone apps that support your practice and can make your home life easier too including shift planning, prescribing and personal finance
This article was updated on 16 February 2021
With busy work schedules that often incorporate changing rota patterns and night shifts, nurses and nursing students need more ways than most to stay organised.
Nursing Standard has pulled together the smartphone apps that work on both iOS and Android and might just make your life easier.
Planning your shiftsA shift planning tool could this be the most useful app a nurse can have?
With 280,000 active users, this free shift planning app allows individuals to
Smartphone apps that support your practice and can make your home life easier too – including shift planning, prescribing and personal finance
This article was updated on 16 February 2021
With busy work schedules that often incorporate changing rota patterns and night shifts, nurses and nursing students need more ways than most to stay organised.
Nursing Standard has pulled together the smartphone apps that work on both iOS and Android and might just make your life easier.
Planning your shifts
A shift planning tool – could this be the most useful app a nurse can have?
With 280,000 active users, this free shift planning app allows individuals to add shifts to a planner, customise holidays, overtime, training and even shift swaps.
The app then provides a handy calendar-view guide to when you are working, with colour coded guides for each month. Optional premium features include calendar syncing and sharing.
Reviews from nurses are positive.
‘As an NHS nurse shift worker, I live by this app,’ says one user.
‘I am a nurse and use this for my off-duty,’ says another. ‘By far the best app I have used for recording my shifts. My friends and family members who are also in the NHS use this app too… allows you to tailor your shift patterns to your preferences, add notes, set patterns and change colours and is pretty much idiot proof. Love this.’
Download the myshiftplanner app
Organisation for nursing students
It’s no secret that undertaking a nursing degree is a full-time endeavour that requires great planning and organisation.
Not only are students required to record 2,300 clinical placement hours, but there is a demanding academic workload to keep up with too.
This app is a great tool for taking down thoughts and storing photos, web clippings, complex notes, to-do lists, and just about anything else you can think of when in lectures, as you read books or essays, or during a break on placement.
There are free and paid-for versions to choose from.
Guidance for nurse prescribers
The British National Formulary
An essential for nurse prescribers, the free BNF app provides quick access to the nurse prescriber’s formulary, and guidance on treatments, medicines, and drug interactions.
The app collects all the drug reference information you could need in one place, to keep close to hand on shift.
Its value for nurses is that it provides trusted and authoritative content, simply presented at the point of use, alongside specialist resources for nurses who prescribe.
The app can be used offline, so on the ward the content is always there as a digest for rapid reference.
The app includes access to the BNFC, for children.
- RELATED: Preparing to prescribe toolkit
Managing your money
Yolt is a secure budgeting app that collects your banking and financial information in one place, making it easier to manage and understand.
Use it to centralise multiple bank accounts, credit and debit cards, sources of income and expenses.
The app helps identify your spending habits and unnecessary costs, and creates alerts for pending direct debits and pay days to help you save money and take control of your budget.
The app has tools to compare vendors and providers and can even be used to manage medical prescriptions.
Alternatives include the free Money Dashboard app.
Meditation and your well-being
This is probably the world’s most widely used meditation, sleep health and well-being app.
It includes free mindfulness and well-being courses, yoga classes, talks and meditation for adults and children.
The app includes ‘sleep music’, soundscapes, bedtime tales and guided sleep meditations to help users relax and wind down at bedtime.
The app includes guided meditations and talks by meditation and mindfulness experts, neuroscientists, psychologists and teachers from institutions including the University of Oxford.
Download the Insight Timer app
COVID-19 research
The COVID Symptom Study app is a not-for-profit initiative launched in March 2020 to support COVID-19 research.
The app was launched by health science company ZOE, with scientific analysis provided by King’s College London (KCL).
With more than 4 million contributors globally, the project is the world’s largest ongoing study of COVID-19.
It collects data on health factors, including symptom prevalence and social distancing behaviour, to help researchers understand the virus’s spread and potential containment measures.
Research is led by Tim Spector, a KCL professor of genetic epidemiology.
Download the COVID Symptom Study app
And don’t forget…
Nursing Standard has an app that keeps subscribers up to date with all the practice and professional developments in nursing.
Related articles
- Strategies to avoid feeling overwhelmed by the pressures of work
- How mindfulness and self-compassion can enhance compassionate care
- NHS nurses to get paid before payday with flexible finance app
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