Firsway Health Centre will always do our best to try to see patients in a timely fashion. However, this is unfortunately increasingly difficult as patients become more complex. We do our best to give each patient the time we feel they need, and this can be helped by patients arriving on time for their appointments.
Patients are expected to arrive in good time for their appointments, taking into account journey times when booking appointments. We do understand that an occasional delay is unavoidable as sometimes factors are outside of patients’ control and these in turn could result in patients being late for their appointment or them being unable to attend their appointment.
We ask that when patients’ know that they are going to be late for their appointments, that they make contact with us as soon as possible. We can then confirm whether we will still be able to go ahead with their appointment.
Patients who arrive late for an appointment may be advised to rebook. This is to prevent delays to the clinician’s sessions and to ensure fairness for patients who have arrived on time. The Practice will undertake to see patients who are going to be late, however, this will not be possible in all circumstances.
This protocol sets out the procedure to follow where a patient:
- Is late for their appointment, but is less than 5 minutes late – see as usual
- Is more than 5 minutes late, and less than 10 minutes. Patients may have an extended waiting time until the Clinician becomes available after they have seen other bookable appointments who arrived on time first.
- Is more than 10 minutes late. Patient has missed their appointment and has been marked as “Did Not Attend”. They will be offered an alternative appointment later that day if there is one available, e.g. a patient cancellation. If we are unable to accommodate the patient in a later appointment slot, we will rebook them in the next available convenient appointment.
- Where the patient has an indication of clinical urgency, for example the patient is booked in a red appointment (urgent) slot, the clinician should be advised that the patient is late, and they may agree to add them to the end of the clinic.
Or,
- Telephones at short notice to advise that they will be late, the receptionist may advise them on the phone that they should rebook, rather than waste a journey as the above provisions will apply as the phone call does not alter the policy.
For further information, please download our full Late Arrivals Policy