Five diaries and a whiteboard
Your occupational health service has advisers, a couple of physicians on sessional days, technicians for surveillance and some associates who pick up overflow. One employer has an adviser on site every Tuesday. Telephone clinics run from home on other days. Surveillance days are planned months ahead. Report writing time is supposed to be protected but rarely is.
Each of these lives in a different place: the clinical system diary, a shared calendar, a spreadsheet of site days, and a whiteboard. Your operations lead spends much of each week moving appointments around, and still finds that referrals for one employer are waiting while an adviser has empty slots on a site day for another.
Why planning is so hard
- Not every clinician can do every appointment type, and the rules are held in people's heads.
- Contracts reserve clinician time for particular employers, which can sit unused.
- Site days are committed long in advance, telephone clinics are not.
- Report writing time is invisible, so it is booked over.
- Demand from each contract rises and falls without warning.
The central difficulty is that supply and demand are recorded in different places. Referrals waiting for an appointment sit in the case list; clinician availability sits in diaries. Nobody sees both at once.
Associates and sessional clinicians add another layer. Their availability arrives by text or email, often at short notice, and is written into whichever diary the person receiving it happens to use. Some weeks they are booked for overflow that a salaried adviser could have taken; other weeks they are available and nobody knows.
What poor planning costs
Referrals wait while capacity goes unused elsewhere. Clinicians are booked for work they cannot do, or for too much in one day, and appointments are moved at short notice. Associates are brought in for overflow that could have been absorbed. And turnaround measures suffer for reasons that have nothing to do with clinical work.
| Planning question | Answered today by | Answered by the planning view |
|---|---|---|
| Who can see this referral soonest? | Checking several diaries | Filtered by skill and availability |
| Is contract time being used? | Month-end review | Live, per contract |
| Are we short next month? | Gut feeling | Waiting demand versus booked capacity |
| When is report writing time? | Nowhere | Blocked in the diary, protected by rules |
How we build the planning view
- Each clinician's skills and permitted appointment types are recorded, along with working patterns and site commitments.
- Contract commitments, such as a weekly site day or a reserved number of appointments, are set up per employer.
- Waiting referrals and upcoming surveillance are listed as demand, with the skill and appointment length each needs.
- Bookings are suggested from matching clinicians with availability, and staff choose or confirm them.
- Report writing and admin time are blocked in the diary, with rules that stop them being booked over without a manager's approval.
- A weekly view shows demand against capacity by contract and skill, so shortfalls show early.
- Appointments are written back to your clinical system's diary, through its API where possible, so there is one source for the day's work.
The planning view does not replace your clinical system. It gives your operations lead the joined-up picture that the system and the calendars cannot show on their own.
A week you can see
Your operations lead opens one screen and sees who is doing what, where the waiting referrals are, and which contract days are underused. Bookings go to a clinician who can do them, first time. Report time stays protected. And next month's shortfall is visible this month, when there is still time to act.
Clinicians notice it too. Fewer surprise bookings land on a day already full, site days are planned with the right mix of appointments, and the time set aside for reports stays set aside unless a manager deliberately releases it.
Signs you need this
- Clinician time is managed across several diaries and spreadsheets.
- Referrals wait while contract site days have gaps.
- Appointments are booked with clinicians who cannot do them.
- Report writing time is regularly booked over.
- You bring in associates without knowing whether it was necessary.