What to change
Distinguish appointment duration from the practical time a visitor should allow. Ask the local team to confirm the wording and avoid presenting an estimate as a guarantee.
A worked example
Illustrative example
A practice says the consultation lasts approximately thirty minutes and asks patients to follow their confirmation's arrival instructions. It offers reception contact details for anyone planning a collection immediately afterwards.
Put it into practice
Ask the team which duration appears in booking messages. A visitor should be able to plan the visit from the published information, while understanding any practical uncertainty the practice cannot remove.
Keep arrival requests distinct from the booked start time in the confirmation. Otherwise a patient may treat an earlier suggested arrival time as the appointment itself and misunderstand a later reminder.
What to agree before publishing
Confirm what the published duration measures and keep it distinct from any requested arrival time. Patients may be arranging transport, work or help from another person, so an unexplained figure can affect more than the diary slot. Ask the booking team which timing appears in reminders and calendar entries. Where some uncertainty remains, explain the practice's actual arrangement rather than adding a confident estimate. The page should help somebody plan sensibly without treating time with the practitioner and total time at the premises as identical.
How to check the result
A visitor can plan travel using clearly labelled information rather than adding hidden assumptions to the slot length.
A mistake to avoid
Do not promise a precise departure time when the practice cannot guarantee it for every appointment.
Turn reading into a next step
Your action checklist
Work through these checks with your team or supplier. Tick the ones you have resolved and leave unknowns open.
Record what you know, what is still missing and the answer you need from your team or supplier.
Use project decisions only, without personal, patient or confidential details. Entries stay in this page and are not submitted to Kay & Co. Copy or download before leaving; this page does not save your notes.
Further reading
These sources provide background for the topic. The practice examples and checklist are illustrative planning suggestions from Kay & Co.
Related guides
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