Every winter stress-tests continuity plans that looked credible in September. The providers who cope best share five habits — none of them expensive.
Business continuity planning has an image problem: it is the work everyone agrees is vital and no one has time for. Then January arrives, and the gap between the plan and the reality becomes measured in ambulance handover delays and cancelled clinics.
Across the providers we support, the resilient ones share a set of habits that have little to do with the thickness of their plans. Their business impact analyses are current, so everyone knows which services must never stop and which can flex. Their escalation triggers are unambiguous — named thresholds, named decision-makers, no committee meetings in a crisis.
Exercised beats written
Above all, they exercise. A tabletop simulation in October surfaces the broken assumption — the supplier who cannot actually deliver in four hours, the rota that depends on three specific people — while it is still cheap to fix. EPRR assurance requires exercising; resilient organisations treat that as a floor, not a ceiling.
Plan for the recovery, too
The last habit is the most neglected: planning for recovery before the incident. Debriefs, staff welfare, backlog clearance and the honest capture of lessons are what determine whether next winter starts from strength or from exhaustion. Resilience is built in the calm after the storm, not during it.
