# Adding and Managing Clients

This page covers the day-to-day waiting list workflow: adding patients, understanding the list columns, assigning team members, filtering to the entries that need attention, and messaging patients on the list.

## Adding a client to a waiting list

Patients are added to a waiting list from their client record, not from the waiting list itself. This means you always work from a confirmed client identity, rather than creating entries that have to be matched to a client later.

1. Find the client using the Clients List or any other route to the client record.
2. Open the **Client View** window.
3. Go to the **Waiting Lists** section within the client view. This section shows any lists the client is already on.
4. Click **Add To Waiting List** in the toolbar.
5. Complete the form and save.

### The add-to-waiting-list form

The form has seven fields:

**Waiting List** — the list to add the client to. Only active waiting lists are shown. If the list you need does not appear, it may need to be created first (see [Getting Started](/docs/waiting-lists/getting-started/)).

**Join Date:** — the date the client is considered to have joined the waiting list. This is the anchor date for breach dates and, unless a Last Attended Date is set later, for time waiting. In most cases this will be today's date. It can be backdated where a referral was received earlier and the patient should be credited with that waiting time.

**Priority: \*** — the clinical priority for this entry: Urgent, Soon or Routine. This field is required. It determines which target waiting time is used to calculate the breach date. Priority is usually set from the referring clinician's assessment.

**Manage dates manually:** — a switch that controls whether the breach date is calculated automatically or set by hand.

- When the switch is **off** (the default), the breach date is calculated from the join date plus the target days for the selected priority.
- When the switch is **on**, the **Appointment By Date** and **Admit By Date** fields appear, and you enter the date by which the patient should be seen or admitted. Use this when a clinician has specified a particular date, or when the standard target does not reflect the clinical need.

**TCI / Appointment Date** — if a date has already been arranged for the patient, enter it here. This field is optional when adding, and most entries will not have a TCI date yet. It can be set or changed later through the status change workflow.

**Location:** — the location the patient is waiting for, chosen from your account's [locations](/docs/setting-up/locations/). Leave it as **None** if the list is not split by site. The location appears as a column on the list view and can be used as a filter.

**General Comments** — free text for anything relevant to scheduling this patient. Common uses include patient preferences ("no Mondays", "morning appointments only"), access requirements ("needs interpreter", "wheelchair access"), or clinical context that affects scheduling.

The Last Attended Date and Review Due Date fields are not on the add form. They appear only when an existing entry is edited — see [Editing an entry](#editing-an-entry).

### Adding a client to a list from Group Membership

When you add or edit a client, the **Group Membership** picker lists waiting lists as well as client groups, with a **Type** column to tell them apart. Ticking a waiting list there also puts the client on that list.

<!-- NEEDS CAPTURE: which priority, join date and status an entry created through Group Membership receives, and whether the user is prompted for them -->

Because this route skips the add-to-waiting-list form, check the new entry's priority and dates afterwards, then correct them with **Edit** where needed.

### The status of a new entry

A new entry starts in **Awaiting Triage**. The patient is on the list and their waiting time clock is running from the join date, but no clinician has yet reviewed the referral. Once triage has taken place, move the entry to Waiting.

<!-- NEEDS CAPTURE: does the add form display or set the status, or is Awaiting Triage applied silently on save? -->

The clock is not paused while an entry sits in Awaiting Triage. Time spent waiting for triage counts as waiting time, which is what both Irish and UK reporting standards require. See [Status and Suspensions](/docs/waiting-lists/status-and-suspensions/) for the detail.

### Multiple waiting list entries

A client can be on more than one waiting list at the same time. For example, a patient might be waiting for both an outpatient review in one specialty and a day-case procedure in another. Each entry is independent — with its own priority, breach date, status, location and comments — and all are visible from the Waiting Lists section of the client view.

## The waiting list view

Clicking on a waiting list from the Waiting Lists section opens the list of all clients currently on that list. The columns displayed are listed below. On smaller screens some columns are hidden.

**Last** and **First** — the client's surname and first name, in separate columns. These are drawn from the client record and update automatically if the client's details change.

**Priority** — Urgent, Soon or Routine. This is the priority of this particular waiting list entry, not a property of the client overall.

**Status** — the current status of the entry: Awaiting Triage, Waiting, Waiting and Scheduled, Scheduled for Review, Attended, Suspended or Removed. See [Status and Suspensions](/docs/waiting-lists/status-and-suspensions/) for full details on each status.

**Breach Date** — the date by which the patient should be seen (OPD lists) or admitted (Inpatient and Day Case lists). This is the most important scheduling column: it tells your team the deadline they are working against. Breached dates are shown in red.

A small function icon next to the date means the date was **calculated** from the list's targets. Entries managed manually show the date without the icon. For an automatically calculated entry that has been suspended, the date shown has already been moved forward by the suspended days. See [Breach Dates and Targets](/docs/waiting-lists/breach-dates-and-targets/) for how this works.

**Weeks Waiting** — the number of weeks the patient has been actively waiting, excluding time spent suspended. It normally counts from the join date. For a review patient — an entry with a Last Attended Date — it counts from the date they were last seen instead, and a rotate icon appears beside the number. Hover over the icon to see the date it is counting from.

**Assigned To** — the Diarybook users assigned to this entry. Blank if no one is assigned.

**Location** — the location set on the entry, if any.

**TCI** — the To Come In date, if one has been set. TCI is the date the patient has been given to attend. A blank TCI means the patient is still waiting to be scheduled.

**DOB** — the client's date of birth, drawn from the client record. Useful for quick identity confirmation when working through the list.

**Joined** — the date the client was added to this waiting list.

**Last Contacted** — the date an SMS was last sent to this patient from the waiting list (see [Sending an SMS to patients on the list](#sending-an-sms-to-patients-on-the-list)). Blank if they have not been messaged this way.

**Validated** — reserved for the date the client last confirmed they still need their place on the list. In the current release this column shows a dash for every entry. See [Client Validation](/docs/waiting-lists/client-validation/).

**Notes** — an icon appears when the entry has general comments. Hover over it to read them; the full text is also shown when the entry is opened.

## Opening a waiting list entry

Clicking on a row in the list view opens a compound window showing the waiting list entry alongside the full client record. The side menu has two groups of sections.

The first group relates to the waiting list entry itself:

- **WL Entry** — the entry's details: Name, Date of Birth, Waiting List, List Type, Priority, Status, Appointment By, Admit By, TCI Date, Date Joined, Weeks Waiting, Last Attended, Review Due, Location and Assigned To, followed by the Comments. Weeks Waiting is labelled *since joined* or *since last attended* so you can see which date it counts from. If the entry has ever been suspended, a **Suspensions** table lists each suspension. The toolbar provides three actions: **Edit**, **Change Status** and **Assign User**.
- **Log** — a chronological record of every status change, edit and assignment made to this entry, showing the date, the detail, who made the change, and the status before and after.

The second group is the standard client view, giving you access to the same sections available from any client record: Client Details, Groups, Appointments, Attendance, Group History, Waiting Lists, SMS, Duplicates, Progress Notes and Files. You can check a patient's appointment history, send an SMS or review their notes without leaving the waiting list context.

## Editing an entry

To edit a waiting list entry, open it and click **Edit** in the WL Entry toolbar. You can change the join date, priority, TCI date, location and comments, switch **Manage dates manually:** on or off, and — in manual mode — change the Appointment By Date and Admit By Date directly.

Changing the priority on an automatically calculated entry recalculates the breach date from the new priority's target. If you need to override the recalculated date, switch on **Manage dates manually:**.

### Review patients: Last Attended Date and Review Due Date

The edit form also has a **Review** panel, which does not appear when adding an entry. It holds two optional dates:

- **Last Attended Date** — the date the patient was last seen. When it is set, Weeks Waiting counts from this date instead of the join date. Use it for patients who have been seen and are now waiting for a review, so their waiting time reflects the wait since that visit rather than since the original referral.
- **Review Due Date** — the date the review should happen by. It works as a second, warning-style deadline. The WL Entry section shows how many days remain, or shows the date in red with *(overdue)* once it has passed.

Setting these dates does not change the breach date or the targets. Diarybook rejects the save with a message if:

- the Last Attended Date is in the future
- the Last Attended Date is before the Join Date
- the Review Due Date is before the Last Attended Date

See [Breach Dates and Targets](/docs/waiting-lists/breach-dates-and-targets/#review-patients-last-attended-and-review-due) for how the review clock is calculated.

## Assigning users

Click **Assign User** in the WL Entry toolbar to assign one or more Diarybook users to the entry. Assigned users are shown in the Assigned To column on the list view and can be used as a filter.

Assigning users is useful for dividing a long list across team members. For example, a waiting list coordinator might assign entries alphabetically, by sub-specialty, or by geographic area — whatever suits the team's workflow. Assignments can be changed at any time.

## Filtering the list

The **Filter** button in the list view toolbar opens a panel with four filter options:

- **Users** — show only entries assigned to selected users.
- **Locations** — show only entries at selected locations.
- **Status** — show only entries with selected statuses. Selecting Awaiting Triage and Waiting together gives you every patient still waiting for a date, which is the most useful working view for a scheduler.
- **Priority** — show only entries at selected priority levels.

Click **Apply** to filter the list, or **Reset** to clear all filters. The Filter button shows a count of the selections in use.

Filters can be combined. For example, filtering by Status = Waiting and Priority = Urgent shows only urgent patients who have been triaged but have not yet been given a TCI date — a useful view for a scheduling meeting or a weekly review of overdue cases.

The search box above the list narrows it further by client.

## Sending an SMS to patients on the list

You can send an SMS to selected patients directly from the list view. This needs the permission to send SMS.

1. Tick the entries you want to message. Use Filter first to narrow the list if needed.
2. Click **Waiting List Menu** in the toolbar. The panel shows how many records are selected.
3. Select **Send SMS**.
4. Write the message and send it.

The message goes to each patient's first mobile number. Patients who have opted out of SMS on that number are skipped, and where two selected entries share a mobile number the second is flagged as a duplicate. Once sent, the **Last Contacted** column records the date for each patient messaged.

Send SMS is greyed out if no records are selected or you do not have permission to send SMS.

## Practical tips

**Sort by breach date.** The most common way to work through a waiting list is to sort by breach date, earliest first, so the patients closest to breaching appear at the top. Combined with a status filter for Awaiting Triage and Waiting, this gives you a ready-made priority list for scheduling — everyone who still needs a date, in the order they need it.

**Use comments consistently.** Free text is most useful when teams agree on what goes there. Consider establishing conventions — for example, always noting patient contact preferences, whether a translator is needed, or whether the patient has been discussed at a meeting.

**Set a location on every entry for multi-site lists.** The Location filter only helps if entries carry a location. Entries left as None will not appear when a location filter is applied.

**Review assigned users regularly.** Staff leave, move roles and go on leave. A quick check that every entry has a current assigned user stops entries falling into a gap where no one is actively managing them.

**Use Last Contacted to plan follow-up.** Sorting by Last Contacted shows who has not been messaged recently, which helps when working through a list for contact or validation.

## Related

- [Getting Started](/docs/waiting-lists/getting-started/) — creating a list and setting targets.
- [Status and Suspensions](/docs/waiting-lists/status-and-suspensions/) — moving entries through statuses, suspending and resuming, and what each transition requires.
- [Breach Dates and Targets](/docs/waiting-lists/breach-dates-and-targets/) — how breach dates and weeks waiting are calculated.
- [Client Validation](/docs/waiting-lists/client-validation/) — confirming patients still need their place.

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Source: https://diarybook.com/docs/waiting-lists/adding-and-managing-clients/