Business continuity week: Loss of staff

This week (16^th-20^th May) is Business Continuity Awareness week. Organised by the Business Continuity Institute, the week aims to raise awareness of the importance of business continuity and resilience in organisations such as ours.

The theme for the week is return on investment and, in addition to the obvious benefits business continuity has in the event of a disruption, it will look at the other advantages it may have.

Loss of staff

What can go wrong?

• Unanswered calls and queries resulting in reduction of service to public
• Patient care levels decrease
• Loss of or incomplete data
• Key individual with business knowledge leaves possibly without proper handover of process.

What can you do?

• Cross-train staff so that you do not have a single point of failure
• Re-allocate staff to cover critical activities
• Ensure more than one person can operate and access a system

If you would like any further information on business continuity, please contact our Business Continuity Lead, Ian Crowson, by emailing ian.crowson@eastamb.nhs.uk.

Published 18th May, 2016