Make sure you delete old documents, don't hold on to them just in case. As a business we are required legally to remove out-of-date documentation. If the documents you hold are subject to more than one retention schedule (e.g you have a local policy) pick the one with the longest retention period to be on the safe side.
Only move files which are within their retention period (e.g. not out-of-date and following the NHSGGC policy) and keep a note of what you are deleting in a register (Document disposal log).
NHSGGC Retention policy (last document in list)
Examples from the NHSGGC Retention Policy (2015):
Annual leave records - 2 years.
Waiting list monitoring reports - 6 years
Nurses training records - 40 years
You can also refer to Scottish Government Records Management: NHS Code Of Practice (Scotland) Version 2.1 January 2012. http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2012/01/10143104/0 (some of the timescales below come from the guidance in this document). The Scottish Government guidance is currently under review, and this document will be updated when the new guidance becomes available.
Go through the guidance and make a note against each of your document categories that you will be using within the BCS. If you have a catgegory which does not have a retention schedule, discuss with colleagues what would be a useful cut off - and apply that and attach to your own BCS documentation. Getting used to regularly deleting out-of-date documents will assist with your annual Information Asset Register submissions too.
Below is an example from the Library Network:
|
Annual reports, strategic plans, service statistics reports |
10 years |
|
Conferences: lectures given by staff at other conferences, or proceedings of conferences organised by own service |
significant papers should be considered for permanent retention |
|
Meeting minutes |
5 years |
|
Meeting agendas |
1 year |
|
Systems governance, including software licences |
operational lifetime of product |
|
Service level agreements |
6 years |
|
Strategic plans |
permanent |
|
Accounts |
· master copies of annual accounts – permanent · cost and working papers – 3 years |
|
Signed ILL request forms |
6 years + 1 day |
|
Minor financial records eg. cheque stubs, petty cash |
3 years |
|
Procurement – delivery notes, indents |
2 years |
|
Bills, receipts, cash books |
3 years |
|
Creditor payments |
3 years |
|
Debtors’ records |
3 years |
|
Invoices payable |
3 years |
|
Safety risk data sheets (including fire safety) |
10 years |
|
IT sign-in sheets |
2 years |
|
SENSE, KUTD - documents re governance of the service |
current copies only when reviewing documents, keep the previous version during the review, then discard |
|
SENSE, KUTD, literature search results |
· standard and quick searches – 5 years, though local decision can be made to keep individual things for longer (eg. ongoing work) · comprehensive searches, projects – 10 years maximum · local decisions for individual projects literature search results for the past 5 years which were run on oldQUEST (2012 to April 2017) will be uploaded to Sharepoint – Clinical Support Services > Information Services L2 > Information Requests L3 and then into the relevant folder. These folders will be weeded regularly. copies of search results for May 2017 onwards are stored in Zendesk, attached to the user request. |
|
CABs – governance of service
|
when reviewing documents, keep the previous version during the review, then discard |
|
CABs |
current edition + working copies older issues should already be stored on Zendesk/Mailchimp or other platform |
|
Training – documents re governance of service |
current copies only when reviewing documents, keep the previous version during the review, then discard |
|
Training Training guides, presentations, training plans, protocols, “how to” guides (eg training hints & tips), training needs analysis etc. |
current copies only when reviewing documents, keep the previous version during the review, then discard Records of training sessions run are retained on Zendesk (1-2-1) and Webropol (groups) |
|
Outreach Outreach log |
maximum of 5 years after the end of the project (this is to allow for eg. benchmarking if running analysis periodically, to build up long term relationships with departments/teams, to inform future practice) |
|
Projects – LN is the project owner |
maximum of 10 years after the end of the project Projects are registered on Zendesk and all documentation to be saved should be attached to the records there |
|
Projects – LN is not the project owner |
Project owner responsible for keeping master copies attach documents to be saved to Zendesk record |
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