1.2. Demand versus capacity - a simple overview

It is recognised that practices simply cannot meet all their patients’ expectations for appointments. In some practices the mix of telephone consultations, telephone triage, open access clinics etc may cause problems when assessing appointment supply.

However, by following the simple demand versus capacity process described in this section and the previous section, practices should gain a basic understanding of the factors that might affect patients’ experience of access. Here is a simple process to analyse the number and type of consultations that you offer. You can then carry out a basic comparison between your capacity and your levels of demand (as discussed in the previous section).

This should help you to understand:

• whether you offer the right number of appointments, the right mix between same-day and pre-bookable and to check whether they are spread correctly across the week; and
• how you might compare against some national averages as a rough guide.

We provide a detailed practical example to help you learn from a practice that carried out in-depth analysis.

Important 

It is recognised that practices simply cannot meet all their patients’ expectations for appointments. In some practices the mix of telephone consultations, telephone triage, open access clinics etc may cause problems when assessing appointment supply. However, by following the simple demand versus capacity process described in this section and the previous section, practices should gain a basic understanding of the factors that might affect patients’ experience of access.

Step-by-Step Guide: Demand versus Capacity

A Practical Example 

Crude comparisons with national averages

• Nationally, the median consultation rate is 5.31 (so, on average, each patient is seen just over five times in the year) for doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals within general practice.
• A convenient rule of thumb is that the median level is approximately equivalent to 100 appointments per week for every 1,000 patients.
• However, significant numbers of practices have consultation rates lower than 4 or higher than 8 so there are very wide variations between practices – you may want to consider why the demands of your patients may be greater or less.