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Appointments

Enabling the appointments feature 

If your practice does not make appointments available for online booking within the App, you can still allow patients to view any past and future appointments when you make them available. They'll also be able to cancel any upcoming appointments within the App.

Online appointment booking 

For patients to see available appointment slots in the App, the practice must first make them available for online booking in the clinical system. 

We recommend that if an appointment can be booked over the phone, you should consider making it bookable online through the App. We recognise that recently practices have had to change the way they book appointments. The App is here to support you through these changes. 

Examples of appointments a practice might make available online include: 

  • routine pre-bookable appointments 
  • triage appointments 
  • healthcare assistant (HCA) appointments 
  • blood tests 
  • cervical screening (smear tests) 
  • asthma and COPD appointments  

The more types of appointments you can make available to book online, the more people will use the App and the more time this will save for reception staff. 

However, it's up to each practice to make decisions about online booking that best suit how you work. It’s expected that practices will triage patients before offering them a bookable appointment. You can use features in your clinical systems to support your processes. 

These can include: 

  • setting timed release dates, so that appointments become available online at the same time your phone lines open 
  • limiting the number of appointments patients can book at one time, but be aware this will cap the number of total appointments, whether they’re booked online, over the phone or in person 
  • asking the patient to give a reason for booking, if this is available in the system you use, which can help staff contact any patient who has booked an appointment that's not suitable 

The methods vary in different clinical systems. You can get support from your system supplier. We have provided brief guidelines on making your appointments available online within specific clinical systems. 

The NHS Wales App will show any appointments you’ve made available for online booking within the next 16 weeks. 

Appointments 

DO 

  • make it clear if the appointment is a phone or online appointment, for example “phone appointment – general”, remembering that phone appointments must be set up as a separate “location” 
  • use simple language 
  • make the purpose of the appointment clear 
  • state which groups the appointment slot is for, for example “over 50s – winter flu jabs” 

DO NOT 

  • use clinical terms, think “blood test "rather than “phlebotomy” (see A to Z of NHS health writing) 
  • use terms such as “default”, “internet” or “embargo”, as they make no sense to patients 
  • include practice member name, time or location, these are displayed separately   

Clinical names 

DO 
include the gender of the practice member in the name field using (M) or (F), research shows this is important to patients 

DO NOT 
include the practice member’s name in appointment names, this causes confusion as the clinician’s name is displayed separately 

Check and change the names of your appointments 

How you change the names depends on your clinical system. 

EMIS: instructions for naming appointments 

In EMIS, patients can see the Session Name and Slot Type. 

To change the Session Name: 

  1. In the Appointment Book tab, click on “Create Session” and choose “Load from template”. 
  2. Edit the Session Name and click “Save as template”. 
  3. If this session template is already in use, a pop-up will appear asking you if you want to update existing sessions, choose “Yes” to rename them. 

To change the slot type: 

  1. In the Appointment Book tab, click on “Appts Config” and choose “Slot Types”. 
  2. Click on the slot type you want to edit and click “Edit”. 
  3. Change the Name and click OK, and then OK again.   

Vision: instructions for naming appointments 

The patient will see the name of the slot type in the NHS Wales App, not the VOS (Cejedim) name, so you need to check the names of the slot types and amend them if necessary. 

  1. From Management Tools, select Control Panel > File Maintenance > Online. 
  2. Under Services select Configure Appointments. 
  3. Select the Slot Type tab. 
  4. Double click on the slot type you want to update. 
  5. Edit the name of the slot type. 

Adding a notes feature in the App 

Patients can add a note about their appointment if the GP practice has enabled this feature in the App. For example, it can be used to say why the patient is booking the appointment. 

Your practice can make the note field: 

  • mandatory 
  • optional 
  • disabled 

Help and support 

Find help and support for using Cegedim 

Find help and support for using EMIS 

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