Automatic mileage tracking for mobile healthcare teams explained

For many healthcare organisations in the UK — from hospices and district nurses to homecare providers — mileage reimbursement is a necessary but often time-consuming administrative task. 

Sounds familiar? 

Teams of nurses, carers, or technicians who drive between patient homes or facilities must be fairly reimbursed for business mileage. Yet in many teams, this still happens manually, with handwritten logs, spreadsheets, or paper claim forms.

The result? Late submissions, errors, and countless hours of admin hours verifying trips and processing reimbursements.

What if it were a lot easier? 

Simplifying mileage management for healthcare teams 

Driversnote Teams, a global leader in automatic mileage tracking and reporting software, can ease this burden for admins and those who drive for work in the healthcare sector. By automating trip logging, reporting, and approvals, the web and mobile app help ensure compliance with HMRC rules while cutting the time spent chasing up and correcting mileage claims.

What is mileage tracking software? 

A mileage tracker app or software such as Driversnote Teams is a simple digital solution that automates how business driving is registered and reimbursed. 

How it works

Employees use the Driversnote Teams mobile app with GPS technology and an optional Bluetooth device, the iBeacon, to log journeys automatically. Reports are compiled and sent with one click to the relevant admin team for review and reimbursement.

In healthcare, this technology supports both travelling clinical teams and administrative or IT staff who occasionally travel between sites. Instead of estimating distances, staff can focus on their job while finance teams receive clean, HMRC-compliant reports ready for payroll.

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How healthcare organisations benefit from automatic mileage tracking

A UK-based hospice team that switched from paper-based claims to digital tracking saw immediate improvements:

• Mileage claims are processed much faster
• Fewer disputes about distances travelled
• Admins gained visibility into pending vs. approved claims

“We used to have to tell drivers to add missed trips manually, which no one liked doing. Now the reports are just there — it’s much less back and forth.”

- IT manager

Reduced nuisance and admin time

Driversnote’s research with UK healthcare administrators shows that the biggest pains lie not in tracking mileage itself, but in managing and verifying claims efficiently once submitted.

Manual logs require hours of cross-checking, chasing submissions, and calculating payments. According to Driversnote’s survey, “minimising the time and effort to gather all mileage claims” scored the highest improvement opportunity among team admins.

As one UK fleet manager in healthcare put it: 

“A lot of what we do is logistical. We’ve got carers and nurses all over the place, and they all need to be reimbursed correctly, but nobody wants to be chasing mileage at the end of the month.”

Automatic tracking and scheduled reporting reminders mean:

• No more chasing missing mileage logs 
• No more late submissions or forgotten trips
• Less time spent on granular checks of each mileage claim
• Easier, faster distance validation

Improved accuracy and fairness

For staff driving between patient visits, even small logging errors can add up. Healthcare teams often cite “inaccurate or missing mileage” as the leading frustration, mostly due to human error or unreliable devices.

Driversnote’s GPS tracking on mobile combines with the option to manually add missed or forgotten trips on web, which are clearly flagged for admin review.

This dual approach ensures:

• Mileage reflects real trips, not estimates
• The risk of over- or underpayment is significantly reduced
• Manually entered trips can be easily spotted and verified 

HMRC compliance and data security 

HMRC requires mileage logs to include start and end points, trip purpose, and total miles. Driversnote Teams captures these automatically, complete with timestamps and route maps.

The result? Reports created with Driversnote comply with HMRC’s guidelines, making potential audits far less daunting. 

All mileage data is securely stored and backed up regularly, ensuring privacy and reliability – both key concerns for healthcare organisations handling sensitive information.

As one UK healthcare admin noted, teams need “tamperproof reporting” and secure location data storage, which are both key compliance and staff trust concerns in the sector.

Supporting staff wellbeing and retention

When mileage reimbursement runs smoothly, it not only lightens the admin load, but also shows fairness and respect for staff time. 

In care environments where morale can already be fragile, it really matters. 

Driversnote Teams helps protect drivers’ privacy with a mileage tracking system that only tracks scheduled journeys. That clarity, as well as the faster, more accurate reimbursements, helps significantly in forging that trust and reducing the team’s resistance to adopting mileage tracking apps.

How to implement mileage tracking at your healthcare organisation

Implementation will differ depending on whether you manage a small community care team or a large, multi-site organisation. In either case, it doesn’t have to be daunting.

Healthcare admins are already juggling patient data, compliance checks, and payroll cycles. The key is to start simple, build confidence early, and show time savings quickly. 

Here’s how to make the transition smooth:

Start with one team

Pick one team or department to pilot with, perhaps your community nurses or outreach staff who drive the most. That will help test the onboarding process, and for the employees themselves to see how much time automatic tracking saves vs. pen and paper or spreadsheet methods. You’ll risk less pushback and will be able to adapt the process before introducing it to the rest of the company. 

Validate your workflow with test reports 

Export a few sample reports and run them through your existing payroll or accounting system. Check that the added mileage and advisory fuel rates, employee details, and totals line up with your finance team’s expectations. Early validation builds trust before full rollout. 

Delegate and simplify approvals

With Driversnote Teams, line managers or team leads can review and approve mileage for their own drivers’ before it reaches payroll. It keeps the process fast and local, while admins maintain oversight.

Customise tracking with project names and tags

Agree on consistent naming conventions and categories early and add them to Driversnote, for example, employee-shared tags for services and projects. When tracking, employees can also add custom notes to provide additional reasoning for the business journey. This ensures that when reports are exported, everything is already pre-structured for easy filtering. 

Set automatic reminders 

Choose a reporting rhythm that suits your company best. Most healthcare organisations use monthly cycles to align with payroll. With Driversnote Teams, you can set up automatic email reminders, so drivers don’t forget to submit their mileage and cause payroll delays. 

Rolling out mileage software step by step keeps adoption smooth and sustainable. Once drivers experience how much easier automatic mileage reporting can be compared to spreadsheets or paper logs, few ever want to go back.

Summary: What to look for in mileage tracking software and why

When evaluating different mileage solutions in the healthcare context, here are the features you might want to prioritise.

If you're still deciding on the best mileage tracking solution for your UK team, read our Driversnote Teams vs. MileIQ for teams comparison article.