Publish date: 8 June 2026
The system upgrade is planned to start from 10pm on Wednesday, 10 June and is expected to take approx. 5 hours. During this time Rio will be unavailable.
You should read the important information below about what you need to do to prepare for the Rio system upgrade and the business continuity arrangements in place while the system is unavailable.
During downtime
It is essential that you have saved your work and logged out of Rio before 10.00 pm on Wednesday 10 June. Any users still logged in will be automatically logged off, which could result in lost work.
During the downtime the system will be unavailable for use. Please record any patient information/activity on paper for entry into Rio once the system is available.
Planned admissions
If you are aware of any planned admissions to wards during the downtime period, please review your patient history prior to the system being taken offline and print and prepare admission assessments as required.
However, if you require any documentation that precedes this then this must be printed in advance of the planned downtime.
EPMA
Any new inpatient admissions or bed moves during the period of downtime need to be completed manually on EPMA
NEWS2
All wards and teams using NEWS2 should have a stock of paper forms. Any paper NEWS2 charts used can then be scanned into Rio using the naming convention NEWS2 chart. As soon as the system is available, electronic NEWS2 forms must be completed for those who have scored 3 in a single parameter or a total of 5 or more, and added to the electronic form. No other retrospective recording is required.
Supportive Observations
Any wards using Supportive Observations on Rio will need to record on paper.
Beacon – the business continuity solution
Beacon is a read-only business continuity solution that has been built for use whilst Rio is unavailable.
The tool will provide access to essential patient information to allow services to continue to function without a clinical system. It is not intended to provide the full electronic patient record or replace the functionalities found within Rio. Beacon will hold the past 3 months clinical documentation and progress notes.
Beacon will be made available for use during the period of downtime.
The link to the Beacon application will be sent out within an IT Service Desk notification before the downtime.
To access the eLearning and for further information about Beacon, please visit the Digital Zone on YourSpace
If you have any questions or require any further information please contact System