Alerts

This page is for coordinators, registered managers and owners, with a section at the end for support workers, who now have an inbox of their own on the same page.

Alerts is two things wearing one door. For a coordinator it is the escalation shelf: things that went wrong and need answering. For everybody it is also their own post: their week, their visits and their leave. You only ever see the rows that are yours to see.

What raises an alert

There are twelve kinds on the escalation shelf. Only two of them come from a person, and that person is reporting or handing something back, not escalating.

Alert	What triggers it
“Visit running late”	A published visit is past its start time on your organisation’s clock with nobody checked in, by the “Minutes before a visit counts as late” timing, fifteen unless changed. Raised once per visit, including a visit nobody was assigned to.
“Visit missed”	A published visit from yesterday that ended with nobody checked in. Raised the next morning.
“Medication not given”	A dose recorded as refused, unavailable or withheld when the previous answer was given, or when there was none. One row per dose.
“Medication exceptions yesterday”	Yesterday’s doses that were not recorded, not given, or given outside their window, as counts. One row per day.
“Visit still checked in”	Somebody checked in longer ago than the organisation’s ceiling (twelve hours unless changed) and has not checked out. Raised at the refused check-out, or by the sweep every five minutes. Once per visit.
“Medication running low”	A medicine whose stock is counted has reached its reorder level after a dose was given. One open row per medicine; opens the client’s Medication tab.
“Care plan review due”	A client’s care plan is past its review date by the organisation’s cycle. Raised each morning, once per due date; opens the care plan.
“A worker’s compliance item expiring”	A DBS, training, right to work, supervision or appraisal expiring within thirty days or already expired. Raised each morning, once per item and date; opens the person’s Compliance tab.
“Incident reported”	Somebody reported an incident. One row per incident, whatever its severity, with the category, the grade and “CQC must be told” where it applies, and a link into the log.
“A week is not published”	A week starting within the “Days ahead to remind you to publish” timing still has draft or changed visits in it. Raised each morning, once per week; 0 turns it off.
“On-call stretch nobody can take”	The nightly fill found nobody who agreed to that day for a stretch on the on-call template. It says the stretch and how many places are short.
“Somebody cannot do their on-call stretch”	A person handed a stretch back with “Can’t do this one”, with their note if they left one. The line is refilled at once if anyone can take it.

A late visit is checked every five minutes. The grace is the organisation’s own timing, under Settings → Organisation → Timings, and is never quietly widened.

Every row opens what it is about

The row’s title is a link to its subject. A late, missed, or overrun visit and a medicine not given open the visit page for a coordinator, or My week on that day for the worker whose visit it is. “A visit of yours changed”, “Your week is published” and “Your week changed” open My week on that week. “Your leave was answered” and “You are on call” open your own page. “A week is not published” opens the rota on that week, “Medication exceptions yesterday” opens the medication report, an unfilled or handed-back on-call stretch opens “On-call templates”, and “Incident reported” opens the incident log for that client. The client’s name in the row still opens the client.

The list

“Alerts” is described as “Every escalation the platform sent, and who dealt with it.”

The filter row has the search box first, labelled “Search alerts”, then two buttons:

“Waiting”, the alerts nobody has answered yet, oldest at the top.
“Dealt with”, the ones already acknowledged, newest first, with who acknowledged them and their note.

The columns are “What”, “When”, “Client” and either “Status” or “Acknowledged”.

“What” gives the kind and, underneath, the detail. A dose that was not given names the medicine, the answer and the worker’s note. A late visit with nobody assigned says “Nobody was assigned” in red.
“When” gives the date and start time, and opens the visit.
“Client” opens their record on the tab that matters: “Medication” for a medicine alert, “Timeline” for the rest. An alert about the whole organisation reads “Whole organisation”.
The status is “Waiting”, or “Over an hour” in red once it has waited longer than the “Minutes before a waiting alert turns red” timing, 60 unless changed, with nobody answering it.

The list refreshes on its own while you have it open, and pages twenty five at a time with “Older” and “Newer”.

A coordinator’s list holds both the escalations and their own post, because a coordinator holds visits like anyone. A row addressed to you reads “For you” in the Client column, where an escalation reads a client’s name or “Whole organisation”.

When nobody answers

An alert that sits unacknowledged climbs a ladder, checked every fifteen minutes:

Coordinators chased. At the point the row turns red — the “Minutes before a waiting alert turns red” timing, 60 by default — every coordinator is emailed again. The row’s status reads “Coordinators chased”.
Owner and manager told. At the “Minutes before the owner and registered manager are told” timing, 240 by default, the owner and any registered manager are emailed instead of the coordinators. The row reads “Owner and manager told”.

There is no third rung. A missed visit that has reached the registered manager and is still unanswered is a conversation, not a fourth email.

Acknowledging the alert stops the ladder at whatever rung it has reached. Each rung is a change to the alert, so the audit trail shows when the coordinators were chased and when management was told.

The emails carry the kind of alert, how long it has waited, a link — and, if the organisation has set one, its out-of-hours contact (Settings → Organisation → Operating). They never carry a client’s name or what happened to them.

Only escalations climb. Your own updates — a published week, a changed visit — are yours to read and never escalate to anybody.

Your own updates

Support workers see “Alerts” in the navigation too, described as “Your week, your visits and your leave. Mark each one seen once you have read it.”

Five things land there:

Update	When
“Your week is published”	A coordinator published a week you hold visits in. It says the week and how many visits are yours.
“Your week changed”	A week you already had was published again with changes. It says how many were added, removed and moved.
“A visit of yours changed”	You were put on a visit, taken off one, or one was cancelled. It gives the day and the time.
“Your leave was answered”	A request of yours was approved or declined, with the note if the person who decided left one.
“You are on call”	You were put on a stretch of on call, by a coordinator or the nightly fill. It gives the start and the end.

Three things worth knowing:

One email a day, not one per change. Each morning — at the hour your organisation sets under Settings → Organisation → Timings — you get a single summary: “3 updates for your week”, with a link here. The rows say what changed; the email only says how many. The exceptions that still email at once: a visit of yours that changes within the next day, a stretch of on call starting within two days, and an answer to a leave request. Nothing that has already gone out in a summary is emailed again.
Your rows say no client’s name. “A visit of yours changed” gives the day and the time, and the link takes you to the visit. Somebody glancing at your phone learns nothing about the person you care for.
One tap. Your rows carry “Mark as seen” and no dialog: you are not asked to write an account of what you did about your own rota. An escalation still asks a coordinator for one.

Your dashboard shows a line at the top when something is waiting — “3 updates waiting” — which opens this page.

A row addressed to you is yours alone. A coordinator cannot mark it seen for you, and nobody else can see it.

Acknowledging an alert

Click “Acknowledge” on the row.
The dialog is headed “Acknowledge” with the kind of alert, and says “Say what you did about it, if anything. Your name and the time go on the record.”
Type into “What you did”, for example that you rang the family, or that the support worker arrived twenty minutes late.
Click “Acknowledge”, or “Not yet” to leave it waiting.

The note is optional but it is the point of the exercise. An acknowledgement with nothing in it records that somebody saw the alert and nothing about what happened next.

An alert is acknowledged once. If two of you open the same row, the first one through wins and the second is told it has already been acknowledged, so the record keeps who actually saw it first.

Acknowledged alerts stay in the list under “Dealt with”. Nothing is deleted.

The emails

Coordinators are emailed when a visit runs late, when a dose is not given, and each morning for yesterday’s medication exceptions. The email says something needs attention and links into the platform. Every other kind is a row only: the chase and the ladder answer for it being seen.

An incident is the exception in both directions. A “Low” incident that is not CQC-notifiable is a row and no email: the chase and the ladder above answer for it being seen. Anything graded “Medium” or “High”, and anything in a CQC-notifiable category, emails the coordinators at once, never in a morning summary. A CQC-notifiable one also emails the owner and the registered manager straight away, the way the second rung of the ladder does, because they are the people who send the statutory notification. Each person is emailed once, whatever roles they hold.

It does not carry the client’s name, their address, their health details, the medicine or the outcome. That information is care data, so it stays behind a login where every read is recorded. Open the link and read the detail in the alerts list.

The dashboard

A coordinator’s dashboard shows how many alerts are waiting and how many have been waiting over an hour, with a button straight to this list. It also shows how many visits are running late right now, refreshed every minute.