Part of Infrastructure hosting standards for the NHS
Maintenance, monitoring and operational management
Standards you should meet on the ongoing operation, monitoring and maintenance of hosted infrastructure and services.
1. NHS organisations should ensure hosted infrastructure is proactively monitored to detect issues before they affect services
Importance of meeting the standard
Without effective monitoring, issues may go undetected until they cause service disruption. Proactive monitoring supports early identification of faults, degraded performance or capacity constraints, enabling timely intervention and reducing the risk of unplanned outages.
When to meet the standard
- deploying or upgrading hosting platforms or services
- introducing new systems with performance or availability requirements
- responding to operational incidents or recurring faults
- reviewing operational resilience arrangements
How to meet the standard
- the metrics and thresholds to be monitored are defined, including infrastructure health, capacity and performance
- alerts are configured for conditions that could impact service availability
- monitoring outputs are reviewed along with trending analysis and acted upon appropriately
- monitoring supports informed operational and recovery decision‑making
- monitoring should include compute, storage, network dependency and environmental indicators where relevant
- alerting thresholds should be appropriate to system criticality
- monitoring systems should retain sufficient historical data to support trend analysis and investigation
2. NHS organisations should ensure maintenance activities are planned, controlled and minimise risk to service availability
Importance of meeting the standard
Unplanned or poorly managed maintenance can introduce avoidable risk, including service outages and data loss. Structured maintenance supports reliability, keeps systems within support, and reduces the likelihood of failure.
When to meet the standard
- performing routine or preventative maintenance
- applying updates, upgrades or infrastructure changes
- addressing supplier‑recommended maintenance activities
- responding to issues identified through monitoring or audit.
How to meet the standard
- maintenance activities are planned, agreed and communicated in advance
- potential service impacts are assessed and risk mitigation put in place
- maintenance is aligned with availability and recovery requirements
- maintenance outcomes are reviewed and issues addressed
- maintenance activities should follow controlled operational processes
- where applicable, maintenance should be designed to avoid single points of failure
- records of maintenance should be retained to support assurance and investigation
3. NHS organisations should ensure operational incidents and changes are managed in a controlled and coordinated manner
Importance of meeting the standard
Operational incidents and infrastructure changes are common sources of service disruption. Managing incidents and changes in a coordinated way supports consistent decision‑making, reduces avoidable risk, and ensures that recovery actions do not introduce further instability.
When to meet the standard
- responding to infrastructure or service incidents
- implementing changes to hosting platforms, configurations or dependencies
- applying corrective actions following outages or failures
- reviewing recurring operational issues or patterns
How to meet the standard
- incidents are detected, logged and tracked to resolution
- responsibilities for operational response are clearly defined
- incidents and changes are prioritised based on clinical and operational impact
- changes are assessed for risk and dependency before implementation
- rollback or remediation options are considered where appropriate
- lessons learned from incidents and changes are used to improve future operations
Technical requirements to meet the standard
- incident and change records should be traceable and auditable
- high‑risk changes should receive additional scrutiny
- emergency changes should be reviewed retrospectively.
Last edited: 18 June 2026 2:06 pm