GP and Hospital Appointment Log

Who this is for

A line for every appointment you attend. Each row takes the date and time, who you saw and where, what was discussed, what was agreed and the next date in the diary, so the answer to what happened last time is on the page rather than in your memory.

Anyone under more than one clinic, people whose care is shared between a practice and a hospital, relatives who go along and take notes, and anybody who has arrived at an appointment unsure what was said at the last one.

What this helps you track

• Every appointment in date order, with who was seen and where
• What was discussed and what was agreed, written the same day
• The next date booked, and how many days away it is
• Whether the letter or clinic notes ever arrived
• A run of appointments you can show a new clinician in one go

How to use it

1. Write your details and your practice at the top so the sheet stands on its own if you hand it over.
2. Fill a row as soon as you come out, while you can still remember the wording — date, time, who, where.
3. Put what was discussed in one column and what was actually agreed in the next; they are not the same thing.
4. Write the next appointment date in the diary column as soon as you have it.
5. The browser and spreadsheet versions count the days to your soonest booked date; on paper, count them yourself.
6. Tick the letter column when the written notes or clinic letter arrive, so you can chase the ones that do not.

Formats

• Printable PDF (A4 and US Letter)
• Fillable PDF with form fields
• Fill in online, saved in your browser
• Excel / Google Sheets workbook

The printable is laid out inside a box that fits both A4 and US Letter, so the two files are identical and neither one is scaled. The fillable PDF has real form fields. The workbook uses plain formulas only — SUM, IF, COUNTIF and the like — so it opens in Excel, LibreOffice and Google Sheets without anything breaking, and every calculated cell is grey so you can see which figures it worked out.

How to print

Download the A4 or US Letter file to match the paper in your printer, open it in a PDF reader and print at 100% — not "fit to page", which shrinks the writing space. Both files leave a 14 mm margin, which clears the unprintable edge on home printers. To print the online version with your entries in it, use the Print this sheet button, which prints only the sheet and none of the page around it. More on printing.

Questions

How is this different from a diary?

A diary tells you where to be. This tells you what came out of it — what was agreed, what was ruled out, what you were asked to do before the next visit — which is the part that gets lost between appointments.

Does it work out when my next appointment should be?

No. The next date column is for the date you were given or the date you booked. The days figure simply counts from today to that date and nothing else.

What if the appointment was a phone or video call?

Log it the same way and put the kind of appointment in the where column. Telephone consultations are the easiest of all to forget the details of.

Can I keep one log for my whole family?

It is cleaner to keep one per person, because the log ends up being read by clinicians. If you are the carer for several people, print a sheet each and keep them together.