PCN and Federation hubsites are offering an increasing variety of appointments on behalf of their constituent practices. Examples of common appointments include:

• Enhanced Access
• Pharmacist medication reviews
• First contact physio appointments
• Spirometry
• Phlebotomy
• Wound care

Booking cross-organisationally into these slots can be complex through EMIS or TPP, and especially in areas of mixed economy. Hero Health can interface with both clinical record systems and act as a bridge for appointment booking.

PCN Hubsites Online Booking

The Enhanced Access DES requires a certain number of Enhanced Access slots be made available for online booking. Hero is ideally placed to deliver on this requirement. Enhanced Access sites need only:

• Determine which slot types are to be made available, and setup any restrictions (ODS code, Age, Gender) or intake forms
• Create online booking links for these relevant slot types
• Make these links accessible on the PCN's website or their practice websites, using Hero's NHS branding pack

This creates a simple pathway for patients to book weekend and out of hours appointments online, and doesn't consume practice administrative time.

How Practices Can Book Into Hubsites

Self-booking links

Some PCNs and Federations prefer not to make slots directly accessible online, and instead would prefer that practices triage patients before booking them into hubsite appointments.

In this scenarios, Hero Health's cross-organisational booking links are effective. This enables practices and hubsites to:

• Configure hubsite appointment slots, which are made available to practices on a permission basis
• Practices can then send self-booking links to patients allowing them to book into the hubsite
• Hero Health will manage appointment confirmations and reminders to reduce DNA rates for hubsite appointments

This simple but effective mechanism is popular with practices using Hero's care navigation triage, where based on a submission, they invite a patient to book into the hubsite.

Direct booking by a practice into a PCN hubsite

Alternatively, following a triage submission, a practice can choose to directly book a patient into a hubsite. In this case:

• The hubsite chooses to expose selected slot types to the practice, on a permission basis
• The practice can then book patients directly into the hubsite
• Patients will be sent appointment confirmations and reminders

How Hero Health Assists Hubsites In Reducing DNAs

A common issue at Federation and PCN hubsite level if that of DNAs. Patients are often unfamiliar with the PCN or Federation service, and occasionally even the location of the service.

Hero can be configured to automatically send an appointment confirmation to patients when they are booked into the hubsite, and then send reminder emails and messages out to patients in the lead up to the appointment. These allow patients to cancel or reschedule as necessary.