Closing the system to requests over the Bank Holiday
When the practice is closed during the week, for example on a Bank Holiday Monday, you will need to make changes to the availability times within the system if you do not wish for patients to submit their requests over the bank holiday weekend
To do this, go to 'settings>system' and we can then amend the settings for Monday.
You will first need to click on the times in the two boxes beneath where it says 'In hours service times' and hit the delete or backspace keys (on both sides of the dividing colon in that field) this will make the time appear as '--:--' in both the left and right-hand boxes and this removes any availability times set for that day.
When you do this, you will note that the far right column 'Service until next opening' will automatically change to say 'Status will be taken from previous day'.
This means that the system will automatically set the service until next opening to whatever appears for the last day with availability times set. If it's a Bank Holiday Monday then likely the last day with availability set would have been Friday. In which case you would need to ensure that Friday is set to be 'Closed to new requests' after hours and this will also mean that Monday will be closed to new requests.
Please see an example below of how this might appear on your screen once completed:
Note: after Monday you will need to amend the timings on Mondays back to what they were previously and also change Friday's back to 'Out of hours requests' if you usually permit users to submit requests over the weekend.
Staying open to requests over the Bank Holiday
You can of course leave the system open to requests over the Bank Holiday if you wish, in which case you would change the opening times on Monday as above, but set the 'Service until next opening' on Friday to 'Out of hours requests' this will allow patients to submit requests, but they will receive an automated reply saying:
Thank you, we are now closed and will respond when we are next open. Please look for any emails from no-reply@askmygp.uk
Adding a Service Message
Regardless of whether you remain open or closed to new requests, you may choose to add a service message to confirm the availability of the service, or sign post to any out of hours services which may be providing cover over the Bank Holiday.
If you wish to add a Service Message and are not sure how to do this, please click the link below:
Adding a temporary service message to your home page for patients