How should a GP practice respond when flooding closes its premises?

Decide where patients can be seen before the timetable fills

Floodwater enters the surgery overnight. Several rooms, the electrical supply and clinical stores may be affected. The practice can still answer calls, but it cannot assume that a dry-looking consulting room is safe for patients or staff. The immediate task is to identify which services can continue, which people need urgent clinical assessment and which site or channel can safely provide it. A premises inspection and an appointment plan must move together.

CQC's GP business-continuity guidance includes loss of premises and extreme weather among the disruptions a practice should plan for. NHS England's business-continuity toolkit treats buildings, people and equipment as resources whose loss can interrupt care, and recommends collaborative primary-care planning with commissioners. CQC's GP notification examples include a flooded practice closed for months while neighbouring practices see its patients. In that example, CQC says a statutory notification is required as soon as possible. The example is a guide to assessing the actual event, not a rule that every damp patch has the same outcome.

This page owns physical loss of a GP site and the alternative care route. The GP clinical-system outage draft owns loss of digital access while a service is running. The vaccine fridge excursion draft owns medicine-specific stock action when temperatures are out of range. A flood may cause both problems, but neither existing page explains where the practice can see patients when the building is unavailable, who agrees the arrangement and how the site returns to use.

Protect people and establish the safe operating boundary

Ask the building or emergency lead to determine whether anyone should enter the affected area. Follow the emergency services, utility provider, landlord and competent premises advice as appropriate. Do not send staff into standing water to collect equipment while electrical or structural risks are unresolved. Record which rooms are closed, which routes remain accessible and whether water, power, fire safety, ventilation, toilets or infection-prevention arrangements are affected. The practice manager should tell staff what they may do and who can authorise access.

The responsible clinician should review that day's booked appointments and anticipated urgent demand. Identify people who may deteriorate if a planned review is cancelled, including patients awaiting time-sensitive medicines, investigations or follow-up. Use appropriate clinical triage rather than simply moving all appointments to the next available date. Patients who can be supported safely by telephone or video may use those routes when the clinician judges them suitable. People needing examination, treatment or a safe physical setting need an agreed site. A blanket remote-only switch could exclude patients with communication or digital access barriers.

Protect staff and patients who have already arrived. Put clear information at the closed building without displaying patient details. Redirect urgent contacts through an attended telephone or online route. Check whether the practice's main number can be diverted and whether the diversion has been tested from outside. Give reception staff a current script with the temporary address, accessibility details, opening hours, urgent-care instructions and escalation contact. Avoid publishing a location until the host and relevant authorities have confirmed it can be used for the intended care.

Check clinical supplies and medicines affected by water or loss of power. Quarantine stock when its condition cannot be assured and obtain product-specific advice through the appropriate pharmacy or medicines route. Do not bring possibly contaminated records, devices or sterile supplies to the host site. Equipment may need inspection, cleaning, electrical safety or replacement before use. A general continuity plan should name those decisions but not pretend to make them for every product.

Agree who owns the temporary care arrangement

Contact the integrated care board and the practice's contractual or primary-care team early. The exact arrangement may use another registered practice, a network hub, a mobile or temporary facility, or remote care with referrals elsewhere for physical assessment. The commissioner and providers should agree the duration, capacity, patient communication, staffing, records access, indemnity and escalation. A neighbour's offer of a room is valuable, but it is not itself a complete operating agreement.

Determine which organisation provides each regulated activity and at which registered location. CQC's location guidance explains that registration conditions identify where regulated activities may be carried on and that adding or removing a location may require variation. It was updated in April 2026. The answer for a temporary arrangement depends on the provider, host premises and service model. Seek CQC registration advice and commissioner input before treating a borrowed room as a new practice location or assuming a neighbour's registration automatically covers everything the displaced practice plans to do. Document the advice and any application or notification route.

If the practice's normal operations are prevented, assess statutory notification promptly. CQC's GP mythbuster 21 gives a flood example with months of closure and alternative care, for which notification is required as soon as possible. CQC's general notification guidance says notifiable events, methods and timescales depend on the relevant regulation. Record the impact, duration expected, services affected and action taken. Do not defer contact until refurbishment is complete merely because care has been diverted elsewhere. Equally, do not claim that a short, contained leak always meets the same notification condition. Obtain CQC advice on the facts.

Establish a named operational lead for the temporary arrangement and a named clinical lead for patient prioritisation. Agree who provides reception, chaperones, emergency equipment, cleaning, accessible entry, infection prevention and waste handling. Confirm who opens and closes the site and who checks it before the first patient. The host may have suitable rooms but not enough clinical-system terminals, medicines storage or safe patient flow for the extra workload. The agreement should identify limits and a route if demand exceeds capacity.

Move information without losing clinical ownership

Patients remain entitled to safe clinical decisions during the displacement. Establish how clinicians at the alternative site access the necessary record, prescribe, order tests, receive results, document care and transfer information back. The NHS England primary medical services policy and guidance manual discusses business-continuity planning and the role of the integrated care board in supporting digital arrangements. A flood can damage both premises and local IT, so confirm what still works instead of assuming remote access is available.

Test an actual patient workflow before moving a full clinic. Can the clinician verify identity and see medicines, allergies and recent correspondence? Can they request a test and tell who will receive its result? Can they record a consultation in the approved system? Can the practice trace a referral or an urgent message sent from the alternative site? If temporary paper notes are unavoidable, agree secure storage, transport, reconciliation and later entry into the patient record. Do not leave a second unofficial record at the host site.

Protect privacy in the new setting. Waiting areas, shared printers and borrowed computers may expose information to people outside the practice. Agree permissions, screen position, private consultation space, document disposal and supplier support. A staff member's personal phone should not become an unreviewed patient-data store because the normal line is down. The information governance and IT leads should approve temporary tools that will carry patient information. Keep contact details for incidents and access problems at the point of use.

Assign ownership of results and clinical correspondence during the move. A test requested before the flood may arrive while the usual inbox owner is at another site. New tests may route to a different clinician. Check both old and new queues daily and cover staff absence. Tell laboratories and partner services about any required routing change through approved channels, then verify with a real report. The GP results backlog draft gives the detailed recovery process if results begin to accumulate. This page keeps the move from creating that backlog in the first place.

Tell patients what changed and check that the message reached them

Prepare a short, accurate notice for the practice website, telephone message, door, appointment reminders and local partners. Say which site or channel is available, how to access urgent clinical help, what happens to booked appointments, and how patients with accessibility or language needs can get support. Do not disclose building risk details that have not been verified or promise a reopening date before the premises team has one. Update every channel when arrangements change, and remove old directions promptly.

Contact patients with appointments rather than expecting them to read a website. Prioritise time-sensitive clinical needs and those likely to face a journey barrier. A new location may be hard to reach by public transport or may lack step-free access. Ask whether a patient can use the proposed route and offer another safe option when needed. Record the clinical and operational decision for people whose care is postponed. Missed contact attempts need an owner and escalation where delay could cause harm.

Inform relevant partner services, such as community pharmacies, district nursing, local hospitals, NHS 111 and ambulance interfaces, through agreed routes. They need to know how to contact the practice and where patients can be seen. Check that suppliers and couriers know where to send samples, medicines or essential equipment. A changed address on a public notice does not update every clinical or logistics route. Keep a list of the systems and partners changed, and reverse or amend them when the practice returns.

Monitor the effectiveness of communication. Check whether patients still arrive at the closed building, whether telephone calls are answered, whether appointment reminders show the right location and whether staff are using the same instructions. A small number of repeated errors may indicate that one channel did not change. Ask frontline staff to report confusion quickly. The practice should review the patient impact daily while the arrangement is new, not only at the end of the event.

Manage the building recovery as a separate workstream

The landlord or responsible premises team should arrange an assessment of the flood source, building fabric, electrical systems, water and drainage, ventilation, fire precautions, cleaning and any contamination. Use competent specialists for relevant hazards. Record the affected areas and equipment, photographs where appropriate, isolation measures, repair scope and outstanding uncertainty. Keep clinical staff out of the work area unless access is authorised. A room may be visually dry while services behind walls remain unsafe.

Review any water or infection-prevention implications with the appropriate specialist. Consider whether medical devices, records, medicines or consumables need to be discarded, cleaned, tested or replaced. The decision depends on their exposure and instructions. Do not put equipment back into service because the exterior was wiped down. Where works involve contractors, establish safe handover, segregation from patients and evidence of completion. The occupied healthcare maintenance handover draft covers the contractor and infection-prevention interface if part of the site remains open.

Ask how a phased reopening would work. One repaired room may support limited consultations while other areas remain isolated, but only if access, fire safety, toilets, cleaning, clinical supplies, IT and privacy are adequate for the services being offered. An approved premises decision and a clinical service decision are separate. Neither should be implied by a contractor's “job complete” message. Record who checks each condition and who gives final approval for the first patient at the restored site.

If closure lasts longer than first expected, revisit the alternative-site agreement and patient priorities. Staff may fatigue, hosts may lose capacity, supplies may run short and temporary IT arrangements may become unsuitable. Review service scope, access inequalities and outstanding clinical actions with the ICB. A prolonged move may raise registration or contractual questions that were not material for the first few days. Maintain a live decision log and obtain updated advice rather than extending an emergency workaround indefinitely.

Verify the return before reopening appointments

Make a return-to-use checklist based on the actual flood damage. It may require evidence from electrical, water, fire, building, cleaning, infection-prevention, device, IT and clinical leads. Test the telephone, booking, prescribing, result inbox, clinical record and emergency equipment in the restored rooms. Check vaccine and medicine storage separately under product-specific guidance. Confirm that patients can enter safely and that staff know which spaces remain closed. An insurer's or contractor's payment milestone is not clinical authorisation.

Close temporary loops deliberately. Identify appointments at the host site that still need follow-up, test results routed during the move, paper notes awaiting entry, prescriptions sent through an exceptional channel and patient messages that mention the old temporary address. Confirm where each outstanding item will be completed. Tell the host provider and partners when the practice's normal routing resumes and test the first transfer. Do not turn off temporary access before its outstanding clinical work is reconciled.

Give patients a clear reopening message with the date, available services and any continuing limits. A phased return may mean some appointments remain at the host location. Update the website, telephone message, door signs, reminder templates and partner directory consistently. Monitor the first days for people arriving at the wrong site. Keep a contact route for patients whose care was delayed and need to rebook or discuss a concern.

After the immediate event, review whether the continuity plan worked. Did staff know whom to call? Was alternative space ready and accessible? Did the clinical system and results route work? Were vulnerable patients contacted? Was the CQC and commissioner position clarified promptly? What evidence supported reopening? Test the revised plan with a realistic scenario. The goal is a safer next response, not a ceremonial report that marks every action complete.

A simple flood continuity decision record

Keep patient-specific triage and records inside approved clinical systems. A general action tracker can hold the event timetable, responsibilities and evidence locations without exposing a patient list. Where a decision was made under uncertainty, record what was known at the time and what would trigger a change. A plan that can be challenged and updated is more useful than an immaculate document no one follows during the flood.

Where Complys fits

The Complys clinics page presents a broad compliance and evidence platform. Subject to product confirmation, it could coordinate a premises recovery checklist, assigned actions, contractor evidence and effectiveness review. It has not been verified as an emergency patient-booking system, GP clinical record, CQC notification service, premises sensor feed or automatic ICB alert. Clinical triage, patient contact details and live care routing belong in approved GP systems.

An action record can show that a named person checked a repair certificate, another confirmed a telephone test and the clinical lead approved a phased service. It should link to restricted evidence where needed. Avoid a single “flood resolved” tick that hides unresolved results, medicines or patients. Verify permissions and actual Complys workflows with the product team before using this story in published commercial copy.

CTA: Explore how Complys could track premises recovery actions and evidence while your GP and ICB systems manage clinical care and temporary service arrangements. Related tool opportunity: A GP site-closure and return worksheet with patient-access, host-site, CQC, ICB, records and premises sign-off sections. It should not present itself as a statutory notification form. Internal links out: GP clinical-system outage; GP test-results backlog; vaccine fridge excursion; occupied healthcare maintenance handover. Internal links in proposed: Broad GP CQC guide and future premises continuity hub after route review. Cannibalisation note: This owner addresses flood-driven loss of a GP premises and alternative-site delivery. It does not own a digital outage, general water-damage cleanup, vaccine stability or permanent practice closure. Recheck triggers: CQC notification examples and location guidance, NHS England business-continuity toolkit and primary medical services manual, local ICB policy, temporary-site registration advice, premises specialist findings and Complys product claims.