A booking experience patients could finish on the first try
Redesigning an appointment flow where two thirds of patients were abandoning before confirmation.
The challenge
Meridian’s online booking worked, in the sense that appointments could be made through it. But two in three patients who started never finished, and the phone lines stayed as busy as they had been before the tool existed. The assumption internally was that older patients simply preferred to call.
Our approach
Watch people actually use it
Eight sessions were enough to dismantle the age theory. Patients of every age abandoned at the same step — a form asking for an NHS number most people do not have memorised and cannot find at short notice. It was needed for records matching, but not until after the appointment was held.
Defer what is not needed yet
We moved identity verification after provisional booking. The slot is held for fifteen minutes while the patient finds their details, and if they cannot, reception resolves it. Completion improved substantially on that change alone.
Treat accessibility as a requirement
The flow was rebuilt to WCAG 2.2 AA, tested with screen readers and at 200% zoom. For a healthcare provider this is not an enhancement — a meaningful share of patients have a disability, and a booking tool they cannot use is not a booking tool.
The outcome
Completion rose from 34% to 81%. Call volume for routine appointments fell by roughly half, which freed reception for the cases that genuinely needed a person.
More work
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