The background
To start at the beginning, each GP can specify how far they are willing to travel to work from their postcode (setting their work radius) within their account.
This creates a list of Practices that the GP can see, the GP can then select/deselect practices individually to create their own list of Practices that can see their availability.
When a practice logs in, they see a calendar of combined GP sessional availability, made from all the GP’s that have allowed that practice to ‘see’ them. They can browse this calendar and click to see each GP’s details. They can chose to contact GP’s directly.
The Request process
If a practice wants to search for a GP to meet their sessional requirements, they can use a special tool in their account to do so.
Create Requirements
Any practice can create as many sessional Requirements as they like in their Calendar by clicking a session and inputting some details about the requirement. Then they can search quickly through the availability of all the GP’s that they can see, for any that show session availability that matches their requirements.
Requests GP’s
In the results of this search they a can select as many GP’s as they like and click once to send Requests to all of them. This creates a Request in both the GP and Practice calendar and sends the GP an email notification of this.
Managing Responses
Both GP and Practice accounts have features that allow users to manage the Request / Response process until it reaches a satisfactory conculsion.
The GP can then login and read/respond to requests, accepting or declining reach one. This action alters the status of the Request in both parties calendars and sends email notifications to both.
If a GP has accepted a Request, a practice can then Confirm or Decline that acceptance, choosing between any GP’s that have accepted it. An appropriate email notification is sent to the GP.
Confirmed Bookings
GP’s cannot cancel Confirmed bookings (green) – only a Practice can cancel a Confirmed booking
GP’s can cancel any booking before it reaches the Confirmed stage
If a GP has a Confirmed booking with a Practice, then cancels it (by speaking to them) – the GP should ask the Practice to cancel the booking in their account, to avoid future confusion and to allow the GP to re-publish availability for that session should they want to