Family access

Families read and sign care plans from the comfort of their own sofa.

A restricted login showing the family exactly what you have agreed to show. Care plans and assessments are reviewed and signed before admission instead of during a stressful three-hour session on the day.

How it works

Limited access. The record of authorities decides who can sign.

Permissions are set by the organisation, and authorities are held on the patient record rather than assumed.

1A restricted view

Care plans only, or notes as well.

Chosen by your organisation, not by us.

2Reviewed at home

In their own time, before admission.

Rather than in a long sitting on arrival.

3Signed by the right person

Parental responsibility, attorney, deputyship.

And capacity for consent where it is appropriate.

An updated care plan automatically requires a new signature, so the sign off always belongs to the version it was given for.

A family member at home reading a care record on a tablet
In your control

You decide what each family sees, and who can approve it.

Both are decisions your service makes, and both are recorded on the record itself.

  • The view is yours to set. Some services show care plans only, others open up notes as well. It is chosen per organisation and per family. So a family sees the part of the record you meant them to see and nothing arrives in front of them by accident.
  • Authority is recorded, not assumed. Capacity for consent, parental responsibility, best interests, power of attorney and deputyship all sit on the record and control who may sign what, so the right person signs the right plan and the signature still means something a year later.
  • The security behind the login. Ameryst has been ISO 27001 certified since 2021 and is penetration-tested annually by an external firm, and every family login uses two-factor authentication as standard. Staff alerts on the patient banner can also be kept out of the family view entirely, by permission.
In the module

What our family portal care software covers

Restricted view

Care plans only, or notes as well: your choice

Review care plans at home

In their own time, before admission

Re-signing

An updated plan asks to be signed again

Authority respected

Who can sign what, and on whose behalf

Own records

A family member can see their own and the patient record, never the information about other family members

Booking requests

Families can ask for a stay through the portal

Version history

Each version of the care plan records who signed it and when

Two-factor login

Families and professionals both sign in with 2FA

Why it matters

What family access is worth

Family & patient experience

The admission stops starting with paperwork

Arriving at a hospice or a residential service and sitting down to work through a stack of care plans is a stressful way to begin a stay, for a family who may already be anxious and for the staff member running it. Reviewing the care plans beforehand turns the admission into a conversation about what has changed since, which is the conversation worth having.

Patient safety

Families correct what we get wrong

Nobody knows a person better than the people who live with them. Reading the plan in advance is how errors get caught before they matter.

Cost & financial control

Hours of staff time back

A long care-plan sitting is expensive in clinical time as well as stressful. Moving it out of the admission recovers both.

Reputation

Families feel included, not managed

Being able to see and sign the plans themselves is the difference between being consulted and being informed.

Before an admission

Four steps, and none of them happens at the door.

01

Plans are prepared

By the team, in the usual way

02

The family logs in

On a restricted view, with 2FA

03

They read and sign

At home, in their own time

04

Arrival is a conversation

About what has changed, not paperwork

And if a plan is updated afterwards, it automatically requires signing again, the signature belongs to the version, not to the plan in general.

Questions services ask about family access

How much can a family actually see?
Exactly what you decide. Permission group are built by your organisation and can be different for each family: some services show care plans only, others show notes as well. It is a configuration choice made when giving access to a family.
Who is allowed to sign a care plan?
A patient or family member with capacity for consent, parental responsibility, best interests, power of attorney or deputyship. Those authorities control who can sign what.
What happens if we change a plan after it has been signed?
It automatically requires signing again. A signature belongs to the version it was given for, which is the only way the record means anything later. The version history keeps both, so you can see which plan each family member signed and when, and an inspector can follow the same trail without anyone assembling it by hand.
Is it secure?
Families and professionals log in with two-factor authentication, and every tab and function is permission-controlled. Alerts intended for staff can be hidden from family logins entirely. Ameryst has been ISO 27001 certified since 2021, is penetration-tested annually by an external firm, and runs on Microsoft Azure with a dedicated instance for each customer.
Can a family member see their own record, not just the patient’s?
Yes. In the whole-family record each family member is a person in their own right, so a family member with their own notes and referrals can be given access to those. What they see is governed by the same permissions as the rest of the record, so giving a family member their own login opens nothing else.
Do families need to install anything?
No. Ameryst is web-based and works on a phone, tablet or computer through a browser, so a family signs in wherever they already are. That matters most before an admission, when the plans need reading at home, and it means there is nothing for your team to install or support.
Do families hear about upcoming bookings and events?
Yes. Updates about bookings and events can be sent to families by SMS, letter or email, so a confirmed set of dates, or an invitation to a sibling day or a remembrance day, reaches them directly. It means the portal is not only somewhere a family goes to look: part of it comes to them.

See it working with your own service in mind.

Half an hour or an hour, whichever suits. We’ll spend it on the parts that matter to your service.