Meet the makers! Dr Imran Malik talks to us about his creation: elocum24.

What is elocum 24? It is an online platform that allows surgeries and locum GPs to deal directly.

 What inspired you to start this? As a locum GP, I used to be a road warrior, travelling far and wide every day. I wanted a way of easily finding work near to me and dealing directly to get the best rates. 

 How does it work? We have live shifts online, simply peruse, apply or make an offer. Bookings are usually confirmed quickly, invoicing is automated, and you get paid directly by the surgery.   

How much can I earn? Our average shift value is around £107/hr.   

What is your ethos? Our main ethos is to try to get the best deals for locums and save a lot of money for surgeries. We do this by keeping our charges very minimum. This platform adds transparency and efficiency to the booking process   

What are the charges? We charge just 3% to all our users, as locums are paid directly there is no added VAT to the fee. Which saves surgeries around 35% on agency costs, allowing them to be generous when booking!   

Are there any other benefits for locums? We are NHS pension approved, so there are integrated pension forms. There is support for your appraisal and you can collect feedback from surgeries if you wish. We have a lot of cool tools such as built-in navigation, encrypted home visit messaging and other useful tools. 

 Are you done developing it? Not at all, we are always looking to improve and develop the site, we get feedback from our users and try to implement as many suggestions as possible. We are just working on a receipt capture tool to allow locums to store their expenses and record their journeys. 

 What has surprised you? Recently a locum asked us to increase the distance search from 40 miles, I figured that nobody would travel more than that for a shift. Apparently, he looks for high ticket jobs in rural and remote areas and will travel hundreds of miles for the right job. So, we have recently increased the search radius to 200 miles. 

 What have you enjoyed the most? I really love interacting with our users, I am really in awe of the general practice and am really humbled by how hard everyone works. 

 How do I sign up? Just click on https://www.elocum24.com/locumpage/ebook And you will also receive a 45 page ebook on Tax and Business advice for locum GPs