This policy sets out the practice’s approach to patients who inevitably arrive late for their appointments. There is always a degree of nuance and where a patient is particularly vulnerable and/or the reason for their appointment is acute and/or severe, we will take all factors into consideration.
Less than 10 minutes late
Patients can check in at the kiosks or at front desk up until 9 minutes after their booked appointment time. Provided they arrive within this window, the patient will usually be seen. There may be extreme extenuating circumstances where a clinician is unable to see a late arrival patient but this can only be considered on a case by case basis.
10 minutes or more late
Patients arriving after the 10 minute grace period, they will be unable to check in at the kiosks and will be prompted to speak to the reception staff at front desk. These patients should immediately marked as arrived in the clinical system, so that an accurate record of their arrival time is recorded. The patient should be informed that due to their late arrival, it will be at the clinician’s discretion whether they can be seen or not. They should then be asked to take a seat in the waiting area.
The member of staff at reception will then contact the relevant clinician (phoning their extension/sending a clinical message as appropriate) to notify them of the patient’s late arrival, and query whether the clinician is able to see the patient, or if the patient should be rebooked. The clinician can, at their own discretion, request for the patient to be rebooked at a later date, taking into consideration:
- Nature of the appointment eg routine review more likely to be appropriate for rebooking than high acuity urgent care appointment
- Extent of patient lateness
- Vulnerability of patient/ability of patient to re-attend at later date
- Current appointment capacity within the practice for rebooking
We ask all patients to please arrive early/on time for their appointment to avoid any issues with being seen by the clinicians.