Playbook, medical practice
Four passports, one nurse and a course of injections
The group request a practice actually receives is a family going travelling. It looks like one booking and it is not. It is a travel risk assessment first, then a course of doses spaced over weeks, per person, with some of it commissioned and some of it charged for. The other group request is a seasonal vaccination clinic, which is a different shape again.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for group bookings holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- A travel appointment starts with a risk assessment based on the countries, the dates and what each traveller has had before, so nothing can be booked as a block until somebody has read the itinerary.
- Vaccine courses are spaced by intervals that do not compress, which makes the deciding fact how many weeks there are before departure rather than how many people are going.
- Within one family some vaccines are commissioned and some are charged for, so a single price for the trip is not something the practice can produce until the assessment has happened.
- A seasonal vaccination clinic is a list run at speed rather than a set of appointments, so the answer for a household asking about that is completely different from the answer for the same household asking about travel.
How it arrives
- can you do travel jabs for all four of us
- we are going away in three weeks is that enough time
- how much are the injections for a family
- can the whole household come to the flu clinic together
- do the kids need the same jabs as us
- can we all be seen at the same appointment
What has to be indexed for this to work
| How a travel appointment is arranged here | The risk assessment first, what the nurse needs to know about the trip, how far ahead to start, and how follow up doses are booked. Written as the sequence a family goes through rather than as a service description. |
|---|---|
| The lead time you ask for before travel | Stated in weeks, with what happens for somebody who has less than that. It is the single most useful figure on a travel page and the one families most want before they ring. |
| Which travel vaccines are charged for | Split into the commissioned ones and the paid ones, with fees against the paid list. Families price a trip before they book anything, so leaving this out costs the appointment rather than the argument. |
| How seasonal vaccination clinics run | Dates, whether they are booked or walk in, whether a household can attend together, and who is eligible. Keep it separate from the travel material, because merging them produces an answer wrong for both. |
The reply
Travel appointments start with a risk assessment rather than with injections, because what each person needs depends on the countries, the dates and what they have had before [1]. Courses are spaced over weeks, so the number that matters is how long there is until you travel, and our page gives the lead time we ask for [2]. Some travel vaccines are charged for and some are not, and that split is on the same page. Seasonal vaccination clinics run differently and their dates are listed separately. I cannot book anybody in or see what is free.
It reorders the request, because a family asking for injections is really asking to start a process. Lead time is given more prominence than price, since a trip in ten days changes what is possible for everybody in the household. And the seasonal clinic is kept separate rather than folded in, because merging the two produces an answer that is wrong for one of them.
Where it stops
The trigger. The visitor gives a departure date, asks what a particular family will need, or wants several people booked in together.
I cannot look at the diary or work out what anybody needs for a trip. Leave me your name, an email, where you are going and when, and the nursing team will come back to you.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never say which vaccines a person or a destination needs, because that is an assessment made from an itinerary and a history.
- Never say there is enough time before a departure date, since the intervals between doses decide that and a nurse works it out.
- Never quote a total for a family, because what each traveller needs differs and part of it is commissioned.
- Never say a household can be seen in one appointment, as travel appointments are arranged per person.
Questions
- Should a practice answer travel questions at all?
- The process and the lead time, yes, and they are the two things families ring about. What is needed for a destination is a clinical assessment and should never be attempted from a page.
- Can it book the whole family in?
- No. It cannot see availability or book anything. What it can do is collect where they are going and when, which is precisely what the nursing team needs before a call back is worth making.
- Is the seasonal clinic worth its own paragraph?
- Yes, because the questions are different: dates, eligibility and whether to just turn up. Folded into travel material it produces a household arriving at a travel clinic expecting a walk in.
Keep reading
- Everything for a medical practiceAdministrative questions a practice can safely automate, the symptom questions it must never touch, and how to word the refusal.
- Handling group bookings in generalNearly always a handover, and an expensive one to fumble. Collect the date, the numbers and the requirements before it reaches a person.
- How an assistant handles appointment requests at a medical practiceSame day releases, telephone slots and who to see. What a practice assistant explains, and what it must not touch.
- Opening hours questions at a GP surgery, answered accuratelyBranch times, training closures and the gap between the doors opening and the phones being answered at a practice.
- What a surgery assistant should say about access needsStep free routes, interpreters, accessible formats and longer appointments. Access questions at a practice are a duty.
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