Recall by spreadsheet
Each employer on your books has its own surveillance programme. The factory site needs annual audiometry for everyone in the noise zones and spirometry for the paint shop. The engineering firm needs HAVS questionnaires for the fitters. Somewhere there is a spreadsheet per client with names, last test dates and a column someone fills in with the next due date.
Every month someone filters those sheets, emails the site contact a list of names and asks them to release people for the next clinic day. Half the list has left. Some new starters are not on it at all. And the sheet for one client has not been touched since the person who kept it moved on.
Why recall depends on one person's diligence
- Due dates are typed, not calculated, so a missed update means a missed recall.
- Different tests have different intervals, sometimes varied by the clinician after a result.
- The source of who is exposed to what is the employer, and their list changes weekly.
- Results are recorded in the clinical system, but the recall sheet is separate.
- There is no single view across all employers of what is due this month.
The root cause is that the recall list is a copy of information held elsewhere. Copies drift.
What missed recall costs
Employers buy surveillance to meet their own duties. When their auditor or an inspector asks for the records, gaps land on your service. Clinic days get arranged around whoever the site contact remembered to send, so they run half full or overrun. And the employees who most need follow-up, those with a changed result, are the ones most likely to fall through a manual process.
| Surveillance type | What drives the next due date |
|---|---|
| Audiometry | Programme interval, adjusted after a changed result |
| Spirometry | Exposure group and any clinician recommendation |
| Skin surveillance | Exposure and the employer's own programme |
| HAVS questionnaire and tiers | Tier reached and the programme's review interval |
| Night worker assessment | The offer interval the employer has set |
How we build recall that runs itself
- We load each employer's surveillance programme as rules: which roles or exposure groups need which tests, and at what interval.
- Test results and completion dates are read from your clinical system, so the next due date is calculated rather than typed.
- Where a clinician sets a shorter interval after a result, that override is stored on the employee and used for the next recall.
- Each month, or as often as you choose, the system produces a due list per employer and per site.
- Due lists are sent to site contacts for confirmation, with leavers marked and missing new starters flagged.
- Confirmed employees are offered slots on the next clinic day, or given a self-booking link where your service runs appointments.
- Non-attenders are chased, and repeat non-attenders are reported to the employer rather than silently rolled over.
Where an employer runs shifts, the due list can be grouped by shift pattern, so the site contact can release people for a clinic day without pulling half of one team off the line.
The rules come from your service and your clients' programmes. We turn them into something the system applies the same way every time.
After the spreadsheets
The clinician's view also improves. When an employee with a changed audiogram is recalled early, the recall shows why, so the next test is read against the right history rather than as a routine annual check.
Your team sees one list of who is due across every employer. Clinic days fill from that list. Site contacts get a clear request instead of a spreadsheet to decode, and employers can see overdue surveillance before their auditor does.
Does this sound like your recall process?
- Each employer has its own recall spreadsheet.
- Next due dates are typed in by hand after each clinic.
- Clinic days run with empty slots or last-minute lists.
- Leavers stay on recall lists and new starters are missing.
- You could not quickly show an employer every overdue test across their sites.