Your Business Continuity Plan Is Written — But Has It Been Tested?
📍 Service Disruption Response | Business Continuity in Practice
✅ You’ve written your Business Continuity Plan. It covers floods, fire, cyber incidents, power cuts, even fuel shortages. But here’s the question that matters most:
Has it been tested?
🧪 Table-Top Exercises: A Simple Place to Start
You don’t need a full-scale simulation to test your continuity plan. Start with a table-top exercise:
- Pick a realistic scenario (e.g. power outage, IT failure, manager illness)
- Walk through how the team would respond step by step
- Identify gaps, delays, or miscommunications
- Record what went well — and what would need to change
These exercises can take 30–60 minutes and build enormous team confidence.
📖 Involve Staff and People You Support
Testing doesn’t need to be top-down. Ask staff what they would do if systems failed or they couldn’t access the office. In supported living or extra care, involve residents in what they’d expect in a crisis.
This gives you a fuller picture — and makes your plan more realistic.
🛠 Use It, Update It, Improve It
Too many continuity plans sit untouched. But real resilience comes from regular updates:
- Set a 6-monthly or annual test/review date
- Log real-life events (e.g. staff shortage, COVID outbreak) as informal tests
- Keep a ‘lessons learned’ section and update your plan accordingly
Tip: This ongoing review process is great to include in CQC evidence or tender answers.
📝 What to Say in Tenders
Commissioners want more than a policy — they want confidence that you’ve rehearsed it. Try lines like:
- “We tested our Business Continuity Plan in April 2025 using a cyber breach scenario…”
- “Following a power outage in November, we updated our manual MAR chart protocol…”
- “Our last review included feedback from staff and people we support…”
This shows a live document, not a tick-box policy.
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Chat on WhatsApp or email Mike.Harrison@impact-guru.co.uk
Updated for Procurement Act 2023 • CQC-aligned • BASE-aligned (where relevant)