Still need an answer?
Still need an answer?
Some clinics confirm your online bookings straight away, others review each request. Here is how to read the state of yours.
When you finish an online booking, the last step shows the exact state of your appointment: Confirmed, or Awaiting confirmation. In both cases the slot is held for you. What changes is the clinic's answer: it has already been given, or it is still to come.
Every clinic chooses how it handles its online bookings. It is a setting on its side, and it applies to all of its bookings.
Manual approval is the default setting. A clinic that has changed nothing therefore reviews every booking before confirming it. The clinic's page does not announce this choice in advance: you read it on the last step of your booking, and you find it again in your space.
Awaiting confirmation is not a waiting list. The slot is already held in your name: it no longer shows as free, and nobody else can book it while the clinic decides. Your request appears in your space straight away, with the clinic, the practitioner, the service and the time.
On the last step, the card carries the title Appointment request and the badge Awaiting confirmation. The View my appointments button takes you to the list where you follow what comes next.
| State | What it says |
|---|---|
| Awaiting confirmation | The clinic has your request. The slot is held, the answer is still to come. |
| Confirmed | The clinic answered yes. The appointment stands. |
| Cancelled | The appointment was cancelled, by you or by the clinic. |
| Expired | The appointment time passed with no answer from the clinic. |
These are the words the state badge carries, in your space and in the Status filter of your appointment list. The full vocabulary is set out in the guide on following your appointments.
You do not have to watch the page. As soon as the clinic answers, a notification goes out to you and the state of the appointment changes in your space. This works both ways: an accepted request moves to Confirmed, and a request the clinic cannot honour is cancelled, with its own notification.
Open your notifications
The feed in your space keeps a record of every answer. Each message names the clinic, the service and the time, so you know which appointment it is about when you have several.
Check the state in the list
Open your appointments. The badge on the row carries the state of the moment. That badge is what counts, even if a notification passed you by.
Turn on browser notifications to be told without opening your space
Confirmations also travel through browser notifications, once you have allowed them on your device. The guide on browser notifications explains how to turn them on.
A request with no answer does not stay open forever. Once the appointment time has passed and the clinic still has not answered, the request moves to the Expired state, the slot is released, and you get a notification saying so. That message also goes out by email when the channel is on in your preferences.
Expired reads as an answer the clinic did not give, never as an absence on your side. It does not count against your account, and you can book again straight away, at the same clinic or at another one.
Nothing is asked of you for the clinic to answer. Three doors stay open.
If the wait drags on and the clinic stays silent, the service status page tells you whether the fault is on our side. When every surface there is reported as Operational, the answer rests with the clinic alone.