Templates and care schedules

The page has three tabs, each the same shape: what the list holds, and the one button that adds to it, top right. Client templates is everything below; On-call templates is the shape of your out-of-hours cover — see On call; Assessment templates is at the end of this page.

This page is for coordinators, and covers a client’s care schedule: the recurring weekly pattern that draws the rota for you.

What a care schedule is

A care schedule is one client’s weekly pattern: the days, the times, how long each visit is, how many people it needs and who should have it. Set it once, and the rota ahead is already drawn. Everything else on the rota is either a one-off visit or a change somebody made by hand.

“Templates” in the navigation lists every client’s pattern, one row per client, with when it started and how many recurring visits it holds. The same editor sits on a client’s own record, under their care plan.

Start a schedule

Select “Start a schedule” at the top right of “Templates”.
Choose the person under “Client”.
Choose the “Cycle”: every week, or a two-, three- or four-week cycle if the pattern repeats over longer than a week.
Select “Start a schedule” to save.

The schedule starts from today. It holds no visits yet.

Add a recurring visit

Find the client’s row and select “Edit”.
Select “Add recurring visit”.
Choose the “Day”. Days the organisation is closed are not offered.
Set “Starts” and “Minutes”.
On a cycle longer than a week, choose the “Week” the visit falls in: A, B, C or D, as far as the cycle goes.
Add anyone under “Preferred worker”, in order of first choice.
Turn on “Needs more than one worker” if it is a double-up, then set how many.
Write a “Note for the door, on every visit” if every visit from this pattern needs the same line, for example how to get in.
Select “Add recurring visit” to save.
Select “Done” to close the editor.

Preferred workers

The preference list is ordered. The first name is first choice, the second is second choice, and the arrows move a name up or down. You can name as many people as the visit has places; once it is full the rota tells you “Every place has a preference. Remove one to change the order of who fills it.”

Preference is used every time the rota decides who fills a place: the slot’s preferred people first, then the client’s care team from their record, then how well somebody knows the client, then who has hours spare. It is an order of preference, not a rule. Somebody on leave, already out, or blocked by the client is never put on the visit whatever their place in the order.

How far ahead the rota is drawn

The pattern is turned into draft visits automatically. The page puts it as “Set it once and the next six weeks are already on the rota”. The rota is redrawn every night, so the six weeks move with you.

Three things shape what it draws:

Nothing is drawn on a day the organisation is closed, or on an organisation holiday.
Nothing is drawn on a day the client is away from home.
One visit is ever drawn for one pattern slot on one date. Cancel that visit and it stays cancelled: the nightly run will not bring it back.

Fresh drafts also have their open places filled overnight, in preference order. Publishing stays a person’s decision, so nobody is emailed in the small hours.

A visit you edit by hand detaches from the pattern. It wears a striped left edge on the rota, “Edited away from the schedule”, and the nightly run leaves it alone from then on.

Change the pattern

Editing a recurring visit reshapes the unpublished visits ahead of it. Published visits and ones you have hand-edited stay as they are, because somebody has already been told about them.

To remove one recurring visit from the pattern:

Select “Edit” on the client’s row.
Select “Remove” on the line.
Select “Remove” in “Remove this recurring visit?” to confirm.

Future draft visits from that line are taken back off the rota.

End a schedule

When care changes or stops, end the schedule rather than deleting it.

Select “Edit” on the client’s row.
Set a date in “Ends”.
Move focus out of the box. It saves on its own.

From then on the pattern draws nothing after that date, and draft visits already drawn past it are taken back. Published visits stay, because the people working them were told. Hand-edited visits stay too, because they are yours rather than the pattern’s. Clearing the date reopens the pattern.

Delete a template

Select “Remove template” on the client’s row.
Select “Remove template” in “Remove this template? Unpublished upcoming visits from it will be removed.” to confirm.

The whole pattern goes, and its future draft visits with it.

What happens next

Ending or deleting a schedule gives the people it had seated their time back. The rota notices and raises a suggestion, “Find the freed support workers other visits”, listing open places on those days that one of them could take. Nothing moves until you apply it. See Rota suggestions.

Assessment templates

The third tab holds the clinical forms rather than the rota’s: the questions the organisation assesses people against. Five come as starters — Moving and handling, Falls, Nutrition and hydration, Skin integrity, Mental capacity — marked “Starter”. Coordinators edit them, archive them, or Add a template: a name, what it is for, and the questions in order, each with its answer type (words, yes or no, 1 to 5, a date) and whether it must be answered.

Editing a template changes what is asked from now on. An assessment already done on a client keeps the questions exactly as they were asked, so the history stays honest. Archiving takes a template off the list for new assessments; the ones already done keep it.