What this means for your practice
Publish only availability information with a maintained source and owner. When live availability cannot be supported, explain how a family can obtain current information.
An example to discuss with your team
Withhold a scheduled update in a test workflow and verify the public wording changes or is reviewed according to the agreed stale-data rule.
What to discuss with your agency
Ask the agency what happens when an expected update is missed. Does the claim become qualified, disappear or reach an owner for review? Test that rule before publishing. The home should know where the information comes from and how old it is, rather than depend on a marketing colleague noticing a change.
Put the brief into practice
Decide whether the provider can maintain a public availability statement reliably before designing a prominent indicator. Identify the actual source, responsible role and update process, including cover for absence. If current information cannot be supported, a clear route to request it may be more useful than a precise-looking statement that becomes stale. Agree what happens when an update is missed and how the public wording reflects that limitation. Ask the agency to show the source date and owner in the internal process so marketing staff do not need to chase informal messages.
Test a delayed update and a change in availability across the website and any repeated campaign wording. The team responding to enquiries should have information consistent with the public page. Review disagreements between the page and staff answers as a maintenance issue. The goal is a family understanding how to obtain a current answer, with the organisation avoiding unverified availability claims that create unnecessary disappointment or confusion.
How to check the result
Measure the age of published availability information and the number of overdue updates.
Turn reading into a next step
Your action checklist
Work through these checks with your team or supplier. Tick the ones you have resolved and leave unknowns open.
Record what you know, what is still missing and the answer you need from your team or supplier.
Use project decisions only, without personal, patient or confidential details. Entries stay in this page and are not submitted to Kay & Co. Copy or download before leaving; this page does not save your notes.
Further reading
These sources provide background for the topic. The practice examples and checklist are illustrative planning suggestions from Kay & Co.
Related guides
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