Which code where
| Job | Code type | Static or dynamic | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arrival and check-in form | URL | Dynamic | Stand by the door, waiting room |
| Appointment booking | URL | Dynamic | Appointment card, window, letters |
| Aftercare instructions | URL | Dynamic | Take-home leaflet, appointment card |
| Feedback | URL | Dynamic | Exit, appointment card |
| Practice contact | vCard | Static | Appointment card |
| Patient Wi-Fi | Wi-Fi | Static | Waiting room |
Check-in forms
The clipboard at reception holds up the queue and gets copied by hand into the system afterwards. A check-in code on a stand by the door opens the arrival form, the patient fills it in on their own phone in the waiting area, and it arrives typed. The form asks for the same things the clipboard did, on a page that shows the practice’s name and address so the patient can see where their details are going.
Keep the desk open. The code is for the patients who prefer it, and the receptionist offers to help anyone who hesitates. Nobody is turned back to the code.
Booking and reminders
A booking code on the appointment card, in the reminder letter and on the window points at the practice’s own booking system. Patients rebook at the moment they think of it, often the evening the card is in front of them. Make it dynamic. Booking systems change, and a stack of two thousand appointment cards should not have to be reprinted.
Aftercare
After an extraction, an injection or a physio session, the patient goes home with a leaflet. The instructions on it are the ones they need at 11 pm, and a folded leaflet is not where they look. A code on the leaflet and the appointment card that opens the aftercare page for that procedure, with plain words and a “when to call us” section at the top, is read.
One code per procedure type, never per patient. The page is generic and public; anything specific to the patient stays on paper or in the portal. Dynamic, so a change in advice is a page edit.
Getting the waiting-room code right
Patients are often older, unwell, anxious or all three. The design has to allow for shaky hands and old phones.
- Size: 5 cm minimum on a stand or wall card. Reading distance is 30 to 40 cm and a bigger code locks on faster. On the appointment card, 2.5 cm.
- Height: seated eye height, about 1.1 m, so a patient in a wheelchair or a waiting-room chair reads it without standing.
- Contrast: black or a dark colour on white. Practice blues are fine if deep; pale teal on white is not. The colour guide has the numbers.
- Matte laminate. Waiting rooms are lit from above and gloss reflects.
- The address in print beneath every code, in large clear type, so anyone without a scanner can type it, and so a patient can check the address their phone shows matches.
- One line: “Scan to check in, or ask at the desk”.
Do this
A 5 cm level Q code in deep blue on white, on a matte stand at 1.1 m by the door, 'Scan to check in, or ask at the desk' and the practice web address beneath, pointing at the arrival form on the practice's own domain.
Not this
A 2.5 cm code in pale teal on the glossy poster above reception, no address, pointing at a third-party form that asks for the patient's date of birth and NHS number before it shows who is asking.
In practice
Ask the reception team to scan every code with the oldest phone in the building, from a waiting-room chair, with the blinds as they usually are. Then ask a patient over seventy to try. Fix whatever either of them stumbled on before rolling out.
Privacy
A QR code is a printed web address, readable by anyone who sees it. Never encode a patient’s name, NHS number, date of birth, appointment details or any clinical information in a code, not on a wristband, a letter or a leaflet. Codes point at pages; the patient enters their own details on a page the practice controls and that shows the practice’s name.
Dynamic codes record scan counts, rough time and device type. They do not identify a patient, and the practice should not try to make them do so. Check that the pages behind codes meet the same data protection standards as the rest of the practice’s systems, and that any third-party form provider is one the practice has a contract with.
Try it yourself
Enter the distance from a waiting-room chair to the stand and the calculator gives the minimum width. Make the booking and aftercare codes dynamic in QR Studio so the printed cards last through a system change.