How to Hand Over a Patient with Their Actions

When you hand over a patient to another member of your team, CAREFUL automatically transfers patient responsibility along with all outstanding actions assigned to you for that patient. This ensures continuity of care during shift changes or when transferring patient management to a colleague.

• You must have responsibility for the patient you want to hand over
• The colleague you're handing over to must be a member of at least one team in common with the patient
• The receiving colleague must be on duty to receive push notifications about the handover request

Initiating the Handover

1. From the sidebar, click My Patients to view your patient list
2. Click on the patient you want to hand over to open their patient view
3. Click the kebab menu (⋮) in the top-right corner
4. Select Handover Patient from the menu

Selecting the Receiving Colleague

5. The handover request dialog appears with the patient's name in the title
6. You'll see a message explaining that responsibility and all outstanding actions will be transferred if the handover is accepted
7. In the search field, start typing the name of the colleague you want to hand over to
8. CAREFUL searches for eligible users and displays results showing their name, job title, and speciality
9. If a user cannot receive the handover (for example, they're not in a team with this patient), they'll appear with an explanation in brackets and cannot be selected
10. Click on the colleague you want to hand over to
11. Their details appear below the search field, showing their name and role
12. Click the Send handover request button

The dialog closes and your handover request is sent. The receiving colleague receives a push notification (if they're on duty) and the handover appears in their Handovers view under the Received tab.

Viewing Sent Handovers

13. To check the status of your handover request, click Handovers in the sidebar
14. Click the Sent tab to see pending handovers you've requested
15. Each entry shows the patient name and the colleague you sent the request to
16. If you need to cancel the request before it's accepted, click the Cancel button next to the handover

When the Handover Is Accepted

When your colleague accepts the handover:

• You lose responsibility for the patient
• All open actions you had for that patient are automatically reassigned to your colleague
• The patient and their actions are removed from your My Patients and My Actions lists
• The handover is removed from your Sent tab
• Your colleague gains full responsibility for the patient and can manage their care

When the Handover Is Rejected

If your colleague rejects the handover:

• You retain responsibility for the patient
• All your actions remain assigned to you
• The handover is removed from your Sent tab
• You can send a new handover request to a different colleague if needed

If you receive a handover request:

1. Click Handovers in the sidebar (a count badge shows how many requests you have)
2. The Received tab displays by default, showing pending handover requests
3. Each request shows the patient name(s), the colleague handing over, and their avatar
4. Review the handover details
5. Click the green Accept button to accept responsibility and all associated actions
6. Or click the red Reject button twice to decline the handover

When you accept:

• You gain responsibility for the patient
• All open actions from the handing-over colleague are automatically reassigned to you
• The patient appears in your My Patients list
• The transferred actions appear in your My Actions list
• The handover is removed from your Received tab

This is the key feature of patient handovers in CAREFUL:

When a handover is accepted, the system automatically:

• Retrieves all open actions assigned to the handing-over colleague for that patient
• Reassigns each action to the receiving colleague
• Maintains the full audit trail of the action history
• Updates action counts and notifications for both users

This means you don't need to manually reassign individual actions before handing over a patient. The handover process handles everything in a single transaction, ensuring nothing is missed during care transitions.

• Check for existing handovers: If you try to hand over a patient and already have a pending handover request for them, the dialog will show an error message with the name of the colleague you previously requested. You'll need to cancel that handover first or wait for them to respond
• Invalid users: The search automatically filters out colleagues who cannot receive the handover (for example, if they're not in a shared team with the patient, or if you try to hand over to yourself). These users appear in the search with an explanation but cannot be selected
• Multiple patients: If you need to hand over all your patients at once, use the Handover all patients option from the kebab menu on the My Patients view instead of handing over patients individually
• Team-specific handovers: You can also hand over all your patients within a specific team by using Handover all my patients in this team from the team view's kebab menu
• On-duty status matters: If the receiving colleague is off duty, they won't receive a push notification about the handover request, but they'll still see it in their Handovers view when they next log in

Before the handover dialog opens, CAREFUL performs a preflight check to ensure the handover is possible. If you already have an unresolved handover request for this patient, you'll see an error message:

"You cannot handover [Patient Name] because you have already issued a handover request for the patient to [Colleague Name]."

To proceed, you need to either:

• Wait for the existing handover to be accepted or rejected
• Or cancel the existing handover from your Sent tab, then try again