CAERN Exception Reporting

For trusts

Exception reports are multiplying.Your admin doesn't have to.

Reformed exception reporting is here - report volumes multiplying, hard 7-day review deadline and fines increasing from August with no added funding.

Caern helps you

  • efficiently process exception reports with a clean review queue and one-click confirm
  • stay ahead of the 7-day deadline with priority ordering, reminders and alerts
  • review stats with a monthly digest and a board-ready report
  • satisfy HR, payroll, guardian and DME requirements
Book a 20-minute look.Read the trust pack

The clock

4 Feb 2026
Reformed exception reporting went live in every English trust. Supervisor sign-off is gone: reports go straight to HR, education reports to your DME, and your Guardian oversees all of it.
4 Aug 2026
Fines double to £500 per doctor per week, and the review deadline tightens from 10 days to 7.
Every changeover
Each new starter must have reporting access within 7 days, proven by a test report. In August, that is your whole intake at once.

The difference

Without Caern

  • ✗Reports typed into a portal, days later, from memory
  • ✗Screenshots and email chains as evidence
  • ✗HR/DME/Guardian drowning in spreadsheets
  • ✗Finding out about the backlog at board

With Caern

  • ✓Reported from the corridor in the time it takes to send a message
  • ✓A timestamped certificate of receipt for every report
  • ✓A review queue, a monthly digest, a payroll export
  • ✓Board-ready reporting every month

For trusts

How it works for your doctors

  1. 1

    They message Caern on WhatsApp when they finish late. No portal, no login.

  2. 2

    Two taps: onsite or non-resident on-call, pay or time off in lieu.

  3. 3

    The report reaches your trust the moment they send it, with a certificate of receipt.

The evidence

What lands with every report

  1. 1

    A tamper-proof location map, timestamped by the server.

  2. 2

    Location matched to the nearest NHS site.

  3. 3

    The doctor's shift vs actual finish times, with the hours difference calculated.

  4. 4

    Whether pay or TOIL was requested.

The suggested workaround of a screenshot map is clunky, slow and not secure. Caern provides the clear proof in an elegant package.

The dashboard

One queue, not a spreadsheet.

Every report lands sorted. Your Guardian, DME and HR each see what they need.

HR

Payroll export
Pay and TOIL, one file for payroll
DoctorDepartmentHoursPay or TOILAmount
AKICU1.5 hPay£42.60
ROED2.0 hPay£56.80
JMAcute Med1.0 hTOIL-
EWGen Surg3.0 hPay£85.20
Export CSV

Guardian

Review queue
This week
DoctorSiteExtraStatus
AKMain site - ICU+1.5 hNew - 6 days left
ROMain site - ED+2 hNew - 3 days left
JMNorth site - Acute Med+1 hResponded
EWMain site - Gen Surg+3 hPayroll sent

DME

Monthly digest
July 2026
38
reports this month
2.4 days
average response time
Top 3 departments
Emergency11
Acute Medicine9
General Surgery7

Up from 31 in June; average response down from 3.1 days.

Board-ready summary, tabled monthly.

The workload

Built for the people who have to keep up with it.

The reporting gap is closing and the review deadline tightens to 7 days from August. Fines are also increasing to £500 per doctor per week, plus every new starter - including the August intake - needs access within 7 days and a test report.

Caern provides you the means to manage this efficiently, via a dashboard designed for you. The information has been collected and collated for you - no time searching through emails to find it. All you have to do is review and confirm, done.

What your trust gets

A review queue that sorts itself
A monthly digest your Guardian can table at board
A payroll-ready export for pay and TOIL
Evidence of receipt for every report - stronger than a screenshot

The specification

Built to the national spec, line by line.

In November 2025, NHS Employers published the technical specification for exception reporting software: 63 mandatory requirements across nine areas. There is no accreditation scheme - the specification is the checklist. This is what it covers.

DRC
Doctor reporting
What a doctor can report, categorise, evidence and withdraw.
DES
Doctor entitlements
Consent and choice: pay or time off, and who sees what.
RPL
Report processing
Unique IDs, deadlines, routing and the 28-day window.
HRA
HR actioning
Review, cross-check and decide within the deadline.
GOS
Guardian oversight
Every report visible; quarterly and annual board reports.
DME
Education reports
Educational reports straight to your DME, outcomes recorded.
SASI
Security
Roles, permissions and administrative security.
DCA
Data and audit
Access control, consent and a full audit trail.
SRNF
Reporting and fines
Notifications, board data and the fines ledger.

We map our build against every requirement, line by line. Ask for the traceability map and check us against it.

The 10 Point Plan

Your board reports on ten points. This is Point 7.

01
Workplace wellbeing
02
Rota information
03
Annual leave
04
Board leads
05
Payroll accuracy
06
Mandatory training
07
Exception reporting - enabled and encouraged
08
Course expenses
09
Rotation reform
10
Lead employer

NHS England's 10 Point Plan to improve resident doctors' working lives (August 2025) sits in the Oversight Framework, and boards publish action plans against it. Point 7 says resident doctors should be enabled and encouraged to exception report. Caern is that line of your plan, done.

Information governance

Ready for your IG team.

✓NHS DSPT: Standards Met (ODS C7Y5R)
✓All data stored in the UK
✓No AI in the reporting path
✓An immutable audit trail - reports cannot be silently edited or deleted

Pricing

Pricing that fits on one line.

Resident doctors - free, forever.
Trust registration - free.
£5,000/yr
under 250 resident doctors
Review queue, digests, payroll export, board-ready reporting.
£7,500/yr
250 to 600 resident doctors
Review queue, digests, payroll export, board-ready reporting.
£10,000/yr
over 600 resident doctors
Review queue, digests, payroll export, board-ready reporting.

Under your quotation threshold - quick sign-off, so you can start using Caern before reports start escalating.

Questions trusts ask

Do our doctors need an app?

No. Caern runs on WhatsApp, which they already have. Nothing to install, no passwords, no training session.

Is WhatsApp appropriate for this?

This is a workforce tool. The report itself lives in Caern's UK database, not in the chat thread. WhatsApp is just the front door.

Does this replace our rostering system?

No. Caern sits alongside whatever you run today. Decisions export as a clean payroll file; nothing about your rota changes.

Who owns the data?

The doctor owns their record and can have it erased; your trust holds the reports and certificates it receives. UK storage, immutable audit trail. The IG pack has the full detail.

What does it cost our doctors?

Nothing, free forever.

How fast can the August intake be onboarded?

A QR code on one induction slide. Every scan opens a WhatsApp thread with Caern - access on day one, before the seven-day clock starts.

See it with your own eyes.

Book a 20-minute look.Read the trust pack.

Or email exceptionreporting@caern.ai with any questions