If an appointment can be booked over the phone, we recommend it should also be bookable online.
We recommend this because during the pilot we found that patients would continue to call in, rather than use the app, if there were fewer appointments available to book online.
The GP Contract Five Year Framework published on 31 January 2019 states that ‘all practices will ensure at least 25% of appointments are available for online booking by July 2019.’ This is a percentage of all appointments you offer in the practice, including nurse and specialist 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. Providing better access to specialist clinic appointments, such as blood tests or mother and baby appointments can also help towards Quality and Outcomes Framework/Enhanced Services (QOF/ES) targets. However, it's up to each practice to make decisions about online booking that best suit how you work.
You can use features in your clinical systems to support your processes. These can include:
- using embargos, so that appointments become available online at the same time as your phone lines open
- limiting the number of appointments patients can have booked at one time - but be aware this will cap the number of total appointments, whether they are booked online, over the phone or in person
- using the messages that patients see on online booking systems to give patients more information to help them book the right appointment - if you use this, you should make sure it appears correctly in all the third party apps that you use
- if it's available in the system you use, asking the patient to specify a reason for booking, which can then help reception staff triage and 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, for TPP SystmOne and EMIS systems. Guidelines for Vision and Microtest will be available soon.
Making appointments bookable online in TPP SystmOne
- Check the settings in Online Services > Appointment Booking.
- Make sure 'Enable appointment booking' is checked. (You have probably already activated this for GP online services.)
- Decide whether you want to allow booking to all slot types, rota type and clinicians, or specify which ones. Use the radio buttons to do this.
- If you choose to specify, a dialogue box will open - move the ones you want to make bookable over to the list on the other side.
- When you specify which are bookable, make sure they match what is bookable over the phone, particularly for general appointments and daily emergency appointments.
Making appointments bookable online in EMIS
- Check the settings in the Appointment Book tab.
- Highlight the slots you want to make bookable online, by clicking and or dragging, or using ctrl-click.
- Right click, select 'Slot Properties', and make sure the Patient Facing Services check box is ticked.
- Make sure the appointments you have made bookable online match what is bookable over the phone, particularly for general appointments and daily emergency appointments.
You can also update your appointment templates to make appointments automatically bookable online.
- Click on 'Create Session'.
- Select 'Load from template' at the bottom left of the pop-up box.
- Select the session template you want to amend - it will load up in the session preview on the right hand side.
- Highlight the slots you want to make bookable online, by clicking and or dragging, or using ctrl-click.
- Right click, select 'Slot Properties', and make sure the Patient Facing Services check box is ticked.
- Click 'Apply and Close'
- Save the template.
Any future appointment sessions the template is applied to will be made available online.