Minutes 0 to 5: agree the setting and boundaries
Choose either a care-home shift or a homecare team preparing its visits. Appoint a facilitator and recorder. Include the responsible manager, shift or care coordinator, technical support, information-governance representative and communications role. Involve the relevant clinical lead where the service requires clinical judgement. Identify deputies and the out-of-hours decision route.
Use fictional messages and the existing approved continuity instructions. Keep identifiable care records, home-entry details and credentials outside the exercise. Do not interrupt visits, disable accounts, disconnect devices or make unapproved system changes. The 45-minute format is Care Circle Network’s suggested discussion exercise. It does not establish that a technical restoration or clinical contingency has been tested.
Minutes 5 to 15: introduce the interrupted handover
Read this illustrative scenario: at the start of a shift, the team cannot reach its normal coordination system or work email. The cause and extent are unknown. Ask who receives the first concern, how that person reaches authorised support and who coordinates the provider’s response. Locate the approved alternative contact route rather than assuming the usual directory is available.
Follow the first operational handover. A care-home team should identify who confirms the relevant shift arrangements. A homecare coordinator should identify who checks the visit position through the established contingency. Do not invent priorities or care instructions. Ask the competent care lead which existing procedure applies and where uncertainty must be escalated.
Minutes 15 to 30: test communication and the next shift
Add two fictional developments: a member of staff away from the office needs an instruction, and a family requests an update. Who confirms the facts, decides what can be shared and authorises the message? Ask how the approved route protects information and how staff know which instruction is current. Include any accessibility or communication support relevant to the service.
Then introduce an absent manager or change of shift. Can the deputy locate the decision record and continue the agreed response? Ask who considers emerging care risks and, where needed, seeks clinical advice through existing arrangements. A technical team should not be expected to make those care judgements. Record the dependency or missing handover, without trying to resolve clinical practice during the exercise.
Minutes 30 to 40: examine usable recovery
The facilitator supplies a fictional update: a supplier says an application is available again, but some questions remain open. Ask who interprets that assurance and what the technical and care leads need before accepting use. Consider the authorised access, relevant information checks and reconciliation of temporary records required by the service’s existing arrangements.
Keep a simulated update separate from a demonstrated restoration. The discussion may reveal a missing acceptance decision or a dependency on another system. It cannot prove that records are complete, that equipment is safe or that a system is uncompromised. Assign any required technical or care assessment to appropriately competent people through an authorised process.
Minutes 40 to 45: agree the improvement and repeat
Choose the gap with the most consequential effect on the service. Record an action owner, decision-maker, completion date and a way to verify the repair. Note what worked and what remained an assumption. If a real concern emerges, stop that part of the exercise and activate the service’s actual reporting and escalation arrangements.
Finish with an account the next shift can understand. Repeat the relevant handover after improvement, involving a deputy where useful. Keep the detailed record protected and share the practical learning with staff who need it. The return on the exercise is a more dependable response, with clearer authority and evidence about the work still to do.
Prepare the working record
Use the editable CSV or the PDF pack with your colleagues. Record decisions and evidence references, keeping credentials, sensitive configurations and personal records in the provider’s protected systems.
- Exercise scope
- Date, setting, function examined, facilitator, recorder and participating roles. Use fictional or approved exercise information.
- Roles and deputies
- Which roles coordinate the response, technical work, care decisions, clinical advice where relevant and communication? What is the approved out-of-hours route?
- First report and escalation
- What route was located or demonstrated, and who received and assessed the concern?
- Approved operational contingency
- Which existing instruction applied to the home shift or homecare coordination? Which part remained unclear?
- Communication decision
- Who confirmed the facts, approved the message and identified the protected route for staff, people drawing on care and families?
- Care and clinical judgement
- Which competent roles would assess the service consequence? Record the authority and advice route, not individual treatment or care instructions.
- Shift handover
- Could the deputy locate the current decision and carry the agreed arrangement into the next shift?
- Recovery acceptance
- Which technical evidence, information checks and care acceptance would be needed before ordinary use resumed?
- Demonstrated and assumed
- What did the discussion actually demonstrate? What remains untested or needs a separate authorised assessment?
- Repair and verification
- What will improve, which role owns it, when is it due and how will the affected handover be rehearsed again?
The blank records are completed locally. They are not automatically submitted to Care Circle Network and do not constitute a compliance certificate.
Published guidance and connected reading
- Digital Care Hub: business continuity planning ↗
Care-specific templates and separate communication resources for care homes and homecare, checked 4 November 2026. Use the appropriate existing plan.
- Digital Care Hub: recovery ↗
Standing care guidance checked 4 November 2026. Our fictional exercise does not establish the results of a real recovery.
- NCSC: incident response overview ↗
Standing organisational guidance checked 4 November 2026. Management coordination and technical response are connected but distinct.
- Recovery ready for the next care shift ↗
Our programme continuation follows the handover from a technical update into usable care-service recovery.