From scattered records to one care journey
Three controlled stages turn fragmented source records into a traceable evidence trail, while preserving human judgement and making every limitation visible.
Define the assurance scope
Assurance is defined with the client as a managed part of the engagement. Before any record is searched, the scope and authority are documented and signed off.
- The organisation, service and contract being reviewed, and the period it covers.
- The people in scope: current, discharged, transferred, deceased and respite clients, confirmed by a named manager.
- The population in scope, selected by cohort, risk, random sampling or whole-service review.
- Which systems hold each type of evidence, who controls access and who accepts the completed work.
Find and validate the evidence
Discovery searches the exports and sources you have authorised, validates the records and prepares a structured evidence package for each person.
- Reads documents, spreadsheets, PDFs, exported emails and text files.
- Checks each record belongs to the right person. Where a name is ambiguous or a file mixes several people, a reviewer decides.
- Records the state of every source: supplied and readable, supplied but unreadable, expected but not found, or not connected.
- Preserves each original file and its fingerprint so the provenance of the evidence can be checked later.
Reconstruct and test the journey
CareStory builds each person's care story in order: assessed need, the care plan that applied, care recorded as delivered, changes and incidents, the response, the follow-up, and what happened next.
- Marks where a loop is open, such as an incident with no recorded follow-up.
- Links the record behind each finding so the auditor can check the evidence directly.
- States the limits of each report: which systems were not connected and which files could not be read.
When a gap appears, GapScan looks again
A missing follow-up can be a record in the wrong place; it does not prove that care was not delivered. CareStory therefore sends Discovery back with a focused request: this person, this event, these dates.
CareStory finds an open loop
The care plan says the office must be told about new dizziness the same day. The daily note records dizziness. No office contact is linked.
Discovery searches again
It looks for that person and that event across the dates that matter, including files it set aside earlier because the identity was unclear.
A person confirms the match
An entry naming "Maggie" in a shared office diary is shown to a reviewer, who confirms it is the right person. Only the relevant lines are passed on.
The finding is updated
The office was told and the GP gave advice the next day. Later monitoring is still unclear, so the finding moves from open to partly closed, not to closed.
Example uses fictional records. Each person gets up to two focused return searches; anything still unresolved stays in the report.
Apply the method to your assurance question
The population and scope are set by the question, the available evidence and the decision the work needs to support.