Stock photography · Jsme MILA / PexelsWhen a team says it spends too long on administration, the next step is to choose one task. “Reduce paperwork” is difficult to test. “Understand why we copy the same shift change into two places” gives you a process you can follow.
This worksheet helps a care owner, manager or operations lead understand repetition before changing it. It is an operational review, not an instruction to remove records or safeguards. Keep personal information inside your organisation’s approved systems and use fictional examples when discussing the process with a supplier.
Start where the information first appears
Choose one repeated entry that the people doing the work recognise. It could be an update passed from scheduling into a separate administrative record. Ask who creates it, which source is treated as correct and what happens when someone makes a correction.
Follow one example from beginning to end. Watch for copying, checking, chasing and reformatting. They may look similar on a process map but serve different purposes. A second entry can be wasteful; an independent check may be important.
The workflow at a glance
- 01 — Find the first source. - 02 — Follow each copy and correction. - 03 — Ask why the repetition exists. - 04 — Test one improvement and review the result.
Copy this worksheet into an approved working document
- Task: what information is repeated, and when? - First source: where is it originally recorded? - Next user: which role needs it, and for what decision? - Reason for repetition: a necessary check, incompatible systems, missing access or an unclear handover? - Frequency and time: how often does it happen, and approximately how long does it take? - Corrections: when the first source changes, who updates the later copies? - Owner: who can decide and explain a change to this process? - Experiment: what one step will you change, and when will you review it?
Measure the ordinary work, not just the easiest example
Use a normal working week as a starting point. Include interruptions and corrections where you can observe them. Keep estimates labelled as estimates. If you only time the cleanest example, you may miss the rework that makes the task frustrating.
An illustrative calculation can help a discussion: a task taking three minutes, repeated twenty times, represents sixty minutes of entry time. That is a fictional example, not a claim about your team or a promised software saving. Training, checks and exception handling still take time after a change.
Decide what should stay
Before removing a step, ask what would go wrong without it. Does it confirm that information is complete? Does it let another role make a decision? Is it required by your own controls? A team may need to retain the check while changing how information reaches the person doing it.
If the reason is unclear, speak to the process owner. Do not remove a record simply because it appears in two systems. Establish which source is authoritative and how corrections will be handled.
Test one improvement
For a small, agreed period, try one change with the people who do the work. That could be a clearer handover, an existing export or a better use of a feature you already have. Give someone responsibility for monitoring exceptions and deciding when to stop or adjust the experiment.
Compare the result with your starting observation. Was information easier to find? Did corrections reach the right place? Did a useful check disappear? Did work move to another person rather than actually decrease? Ask the team these questions before expanding the change.
Choose technology around the process
The government’s Digitising adult social care collection, linked below, includes resources on digital skills, care records and choosing suppliers. Use it as a reference alongside your organisation’s requirements.
Take the completed worksheet into a demonstration. Ask how the proposed tool handles the first source, corrections and exceptions using fictional data. A visible process is easier to assess than a promise to “automate admin”.
Start this week by tracing one repeated task. Keep the necessary checks, choose one avoidable repetition and measure what changes.
Back to our resources