Background Estates and Facilities is fundamental to the overall care a hospice provides. Maintaining a safe and clean environment is paramount for all service users and workforce, alongside the requirements of the CQC and the HSE. The Estates and Facilities team ensure planned maintenance checks are completed and evidenced for vital equipment and systems.

Aim The Maintenance Team were struggling to maintain sufficient, accurate records, which proved an issue for accountability with missing paper records or duplicate spreadsheets. The importance of traceability has increased and completing a vast number of tasks, all with specific instructions and different frequencies, was a challenge. The Quality and Compliance Team offered to trial a bespoke electronic reporting system to remove the need for calendar reminders, wall planners, and folders of paper records.

Method The Estates and Compliance teams selected vital checks that happen on a daily, weekly, monthly etc. basis. After creating the records, system triggers were activated to auto-create on the desired day and time to populate a team dashboard. This enabled the team to view lists of work for the day, week or month etc., effectively creating central to-do lists. This began a continuous cycle of planning new records, building them in the system, trialling them, and refining where necessary.

Results The team interact with the new system on tablets, and it is constantly evolving, such as marking non-compliant work, enabling the manager to develop a picture of team resource capability. The module is rapidly expanding to replace paper and provide remote access to required evidence.

Conclusion The system provides the Estates Manager with clear oversight of planned work, allowing for effective time management and enabling him to report on specific factors, such as faulty equipment, pre-empting replacements for budget setting and overdue tasks, aiming to justify any supplementation of resource for a business case.