“Great Scott!”

How many times have we all said, “If I knew then what I know now…”? Well, if I could jump in my DeLorean and travel back just a few months, I’d certainly make a plan before I did so.

My new-found business plan would include having a stash of downloaded lottery numbers and I’d also hit the bookies with some extremely wacky ‘predictions’ – such as Harry throwing in his royal towel, Trump being impeached (not good odds), or a global pandemic in the coming months that would stop daily life as we know it.

With my newly gained extreme wealth, and in my drive to attain a knighthood, I’d purchase warehouses and stockpile them full of ventilators and PPE, just in case I needed to donate these along with my winnings!

Back to reality… Unfortunately, I don’t have a time-travelling 80s car, neither do I have extreme wealth, nor am I known as Sir Mat. But what I do have is a car that no longer needs to move, a seemingly never-ending mortgage, and my greatest lifetime achievement is probably a toss-up between obtaining my cycling proficiency or my BAGA Level 4 in gymnastics.

Knowledge versus hindsight

Whilst knowledge is power, hindsight is surely more powerful. With hindsight, would I have done things differently over these past few months? Absolutely! For starters, I’d have grounded my 15-year-old son so he wouldn’t have come home with CV-19. But I’d also have suggested on the Practice Index Forum that now’s the time to blow the dust off the Business Continuity Plan (BCP) – so that, collectively, our teams are completely aware of the ‘what ifs’, just in case that overdue pandemic strikes!

All businesses, including primary care businesses, need to understand how to serve customers, regardless of the market conditions, and while no one is suggesting we could have predicted how far-reaching this global crisis would be, we already have access to technology that supports remote-working and remote access. Recent experience has shown us that we can support the needs of many of our poorly patients without a F2F consultation. Also, as our patients don’t want to get out of their sickbeds to attend our practices, maybe Point 1 for our next strategy meeting should be: ‘How much time should we dedicate to e-consultations?’

Now that we know we can tend to the sick, albeit from afar, by using technology, what about other areas of business continuity? Should we be looking at our options now rather than reacting when a new crisis hits?

What is a Business Continuity Plan?

The humble BCP is a document that details how your business will continue to perform during an unplanned disruption to its service. The BCP should factor in every aspect of the business that might be affected. Therefore, it needs to be more comprehensive than a disaster recovery plan. The BCP contains contingencies for business processes, assets, human resources and our customers’ needs.

In short, it’s a plan to maintain business functionality.

Nothing surely could have predicted CV-19?

Well, there is that YouTube clip that’s circulating in which Bill Gates warned of a pandemic meltdown from c2015… And you can be sure that his top team considered how a locked-down world would function and, to capitalise on this, cleverly came up with Microsoft Teams. Even better, this software is given freely to large organisations and then, post CV-19, it will be deemed essential and core to business requirements. Am I being cynical? No, absolutely not. On the contrary, this shows amazing vision and the generous offer of free CV-19 support is (in my eyes) majestic marketing.

That clever Seattle lot certainly thought ahead. Surely, we can do the same. So, during your strategy meetings, set aside some time to discuss the BCP and have a table-top exercise to test the strength of your response, then conduct walk-throughs or simulations.

Testing should help key individuals at the heart of implementing the plan to be better prepared during major disruptive events.

Review your BCP

Once the plan has been tested, carry out a ‘debrief’ to discuss its pros and cons, and how to better adapt the BCP to suit your business needs.

While the BCP doesn’t usually take priority as, frankly, it’s quite dull and largely an insurance exercise about the ‘what ifs’, actually when things do go wrong, we’d like an insurance company that will pay up, not one that hides behind a loss adjuster crying, “Act of God!”

While there will be distinctly less dust on BCPs nowadays, when CV-19 is a distant memory and we have once again learnt how to socialise, before this document goes back on the bookshelf, get planning for the next global catastrophe.

You never know, in doing so, you might become a billionaire or a time traveller!

Further reading

Should you need support with your BCP, just refer to these dedicated policies:

Business Continuity Policy [PLUS]

Business Continuity Policy Scotland [PLUS]

If you need clarification about working from home, there are a couple of policies that can support you and your practice. Included is a new policy that has both a security assessment for staff members to sign and the obligatory Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) that also needs completing:

Remote access to IT systems policy [PLUS]

Home-working policies and procedures [PLUS]