The short answer
- Sickest first, at the bedside if they’re unstable.
- Separate jobs handed over from jobs finished, with times and triggers.
- Give a written list as well as a verbal handover.
The morning handover is the last job of your night, and one of the most important. What you hand over well gets done; what you forget can get lost for a whole day.
What to hand over
Start with the sickest patients, and hand them over at the bedside if they’re unstable. For each patient, give:
- who and where: name, bed, the main problem
- what happened overnight, and how worried you are now
- any resuscitation decisions made overnight
- jobs you’re handing over, each with a time and a trigger: “Repeat her potassium at 08:00 and call the registrar if it’s still high”
- jobs you’ve finished, so nobody repeats them
- patients the day team should prioritise.
Use SBAR, and give a written list as well as the verbal handover.
Before you go home
Make sure every job on your list is either done or handed over to a named person. Then go home. You’ve finished.
Morning handover checklist
Then plan your trip home: it matters more than it sounds after a long night.
General education for doctors, not advice about a particular patient. Your hospital’s policies and your seniors always come first.
Sources (2)
- Acute care toolkit 1: HandoverRoyal College of Physicians
- Safer Care SBAR: Situation, Background, Assessment, Recommendation - Implementation and Training GuideNHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement (hosted by NHS England Improvement Hub)
Adapted from First Night On Call, chapter 6: The morning handover, version 2026.1, UK Edition.