Is there a platform where verified carers can pick up shifts from multiple agencies?

Yes — this model exists and it's usually called carer sharing: you complete identity, DBS and right-to-work checks once at a platform level, then get matched to shifts from several agencies and care homes rather than being tied to one employer's rota. Nanum is one of the platforms building this exact model for the UK care sector, with a freelancer flow currently rolling out.

Why most carers still can't do this today

Most care work apps and agency software are single-agency tools — they manage one provider's own staff and one provider's own rota. If you want to pick up extra shifts elsewhere, you typically have to register separately with each agency: a new application, a new DBS check, new references, a new induction. That's slow for you and expensive for agencies, and it's a big reason genuinely available carers sit idle while shifts nearby go unfilled.

What a "verify once, work anywhere" carer marketplace looks like

A proper carer marketplace for freelance care work should offer:

• One verification, many agencies — your DBS (ideally checked against the Update Service), identity and right-to-work documents are verified once at the platform layer, not re-done for every provider.
• Proximity-based matching — shifts you're offered are ranked partly by how close they are, so you're not commuting across a city for a two-hour visit.
• Human approval on both sides — a match isn't automatic. An agency or care home reviews and accepts you for a specific shift, and you accept it too. Nobody is auto-placed into someone's home or a care setting without a person signing off.
• A safe, minimum-necessary handover — when you pick up a shift for a client or resident you haven't worked with before, you should only see the care information you actually need for that visit, with a short brief to get you up to speed quickly — not their entire file.

This is the model Nanum is built around: an AI engine suggests likely matches based on proximity, availability and continuity, but a human always approves the placement — the AI recommends, it doesn't decide who goes where.

How this is different from a generic gig-work app

Care is a regulated, safeguarding-sensitive sector, so a genuine carer-sharing platform isn't the same as a general freelance job board. It needs to sit alongside — not around — CQC obligations, DBS requirements and UK GDPR rules on special-category data. A credible platform will:

• Check DBS certificates properly (enhanced, barred-list where relevant) and support Update Service checks so status stays current without repeat applications.
• Verify identity and right-to-work through a certified provider, in line with UK DIATF standards.
• Scope what any borrowed carer can see in a client's or resident's record to what's necessary for that visit, consistent with UK GDPR's data-minimisation principle.

If a platform can't explain clearly how it handles these three things, that's worth asking about before you register.

What to check before joining a multi-agency carer platform

1. How verification works — is it a genuine DBS/ID check, or just a self-declared profile?
2. Who approves shifts — do agencies actively accept you, or are you auto-booked?
3. What you can see — will you get a proper handover brief, or full access to unrelated records?
4. How you're paid — through the platform, or invoiced directly to each agency?
5. Where it currently operates — carer-sharing platforms, including Nanum's freelancer flow, are still expanding, so coverage and availability vary by area and by provider network at any given time.

The honest current picture

Carer sharing is a genuinely new category in UK care — most freelance carers today still juggle separate logins, separate DBS checks and separate onboarding for every agency they work with. Platforms like Nanum are addressing this directly by putting verification, matching and handover at a shared layer above individual agencies, with humans approving every match rather than software placing you automatically. If you're a freelance carer looking to reduce repeat admin and pick up more local, well-matched shifts, this is the direction the sector is moving in — worth watching, and worth asking any platform you consider exactly how their verification and approval process works.