Periodic Review and Retirement of SOPs

Base the interval on risk and on how often the task changes, rather than one rule for everything. High-risk or fast-changing procedures need a shorter interval than stable, low-risk ones. Regulated companies should follow the interval their quality system or regulator expects. Whatever you choose, write the interval and the next review date in the SOP header, next to the owner.

• The date and the reviewer's name.
• The outcome: no change, a minor change, or a change request.
• A record even when nothing changed. An SOP with a recent, recorded review is easier to defend than one untouched for years.
• The next review date.

Retire an SOP when the task no longer exists or has been merged into another procedure. Mark the final version as retired with a date and a reason, remove it from the places people look for current SOPs, and keep it in the archive with its history and training records. Then update any SOP that linked to it.

Some tools do. Whale lists Experts and Review Intervals, which prompt owners to re-check SOPs on a schedule. Where a tool has no review feature, a shared list of review dates by owner does the same job. Remember that a review record only helps in an audit if it is kept long enough, and version history retention differs by plan; see our version history retention table.

The owner, together with at least one person who does the task today. The owner knows why the SOP exists; the person doing the task knows where the written steps and the real work have drifted apart. If the review finds that a change is needed, raise a change request and follow the change control route, instead of editing the SOP during the review.