Roles and responsibilities
Responsibility moves across the life cycle. The document requires the parties to know which responsibility each holds and to communicate it at the handover.
What the public record carries
The public abstract says the document marks the moments in a system's life when one party hands responsibility to another, and the kinds of exchange between several parties that those moments need. The public contents place roles and responsibilities at 4.5. The sub-clause text is not public.
Basis. The public abstract identifies transition points where responsibility is transferred and the communication needed there. The sub-clause text is not public.
Why it matters in a health estate
A responsibility that is not written down at the handover belongs to whoever is blamed after the incident. The theme is deliberately about transfer, not only allocation: the same party can hold a responsibility before and after a stage and still lose the evidence in between. The practical output is a handover record that names the responsibility, the party accepting it, the evidence that came with it and the date.
What to do now
Build a handover record for every transition point the organisation owns or depends on. Name the responsibility, the accepting party, the evidence transferred and the date. Make the record a condition of the stage gate, not a note after it.
The evidence a reviewer will ask for
| Evidence | What it is |
|---|---|
| Handover record | Responsibility, accepting party, evidence transferred and date for each transition |
| Acceptance note | The accepting party's written confirmation, with any qualification |
| Open items | Evidence not yet transferred, with an owner and a date |
| Dispute route | How a disagreement about a handover is resolved and recorded |
What a reviewer will ask
An auditor will ask who accepted the responsibility and what came with it. A meeting note without an acceptance is not a handover record.
Common gaps
- A handover is recorded as a meeting rather than as an acceptance of named responsibilities
- Evidence is transferred but the accepting party has not checked it
- Open items are carried forward with no owner or date
- A dispute about a handover is resolved verbally and never recorded
Before the draft publishes
Take the last three handovers and check each for a named acceptor and an evidence list. Fix the weakest one first.
If the draft changes this row
The draft is edition 2 and 62 pages, one page more than the first edition. Its text and any change summary are not public as at 21 October 2026. This row follows the published first edition's structure, which is what your procedure should name today. The change watch emails you when the record changes or the draft text lands, and the row is re-read then. No one can tell you what moved before that, and this page does not guess.
Related rows
Who this binds. The CISO, the clinical safety officer and every party that signs a handover, because the theme assigns responsibility across organisations.