What this means for your practice
Classify incidents by impact on important journeys, not just whether the server responds. Give frontline staff a clear route for reporting a suspected service failure.
An example to discuss with your team
Report a fictional failure where the homepage works but enquiries cannot be submitted. Check that the initial assessment recognises the effect on reception and prospective patients.
How to review the arrangement
Rehearse a fictional report where the site opens but submission fails. Ask who establishes the affected service, priority and next action. The initial report needs enough information to start investigation, not a technical diagnosis from reception. Track the delay before the business impact is understood.
Report the effect before guessing the cause
Reception should be able to say what someone was trying to do, which page was involved and what happened instead. Include the approximate time and an appropriate screenshot where useful, avoiding unnecessary personal details. Staff should not need to identify a server or software fault before a report is taken seriously.
Agree who assesses the effect on the service and decides the next priority. A broken enquiry form, an unavailable download and a minor visual issue can have different consequences even when the site remains online. Use fictional examples to check that the reporting route recognises those differences. Ask what temporary options staff may offer and who approves them. Keep the report connected to later updates so the person who raised it knows whether the original problem was checked. This helps the support process follow the visitor's difficulty rather than closing the issue solely because one technical availability check passed.
How to check the result
Measure time from the first credible report to impact assessment.
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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