AccuBook: How to avoid duplicate bookings with the National Booking Service (NBS)

Find out how accuBook integrates with the NBS, to make sure you have the correct vaccination information for your patients

Laura Rogers avatar
Written by Laura Rogers
Updated over a week ago

As part of the work we're doing to ensure patient statuses stay up to date in accuBook, we now use data from the NBS to see if patients have booked in an appointment with them. We know this has been a source of extra work, following up with patients that may already have bookings on NBS.

You can see if a patient with an active invite in accuBook also has an NBS booking, it is displayed in a couple of different ways:

  1. Note added in patient booking details if the patient has an NBS booking

  2. Conflict marker added to patient details if the patient has an NBS booking

  3. Unclear status filter to see the list of patients who have a booking with NBS

Note added in patient booking details in the patient has an NBS booking

When you open a patient's details, you will see a new line added to their booking details if they have an NBS booking.

Conflict marker added to patient details if the patient has an NBS booking

This orange warning triangle will appear next to the 'Details' heading within the patient details. It will flag that there is a discrepancy for this patient.

Unclear status filter to see the list of patients who have a booking with NBS

There is also a new 'Unclear status' filter which allows you to view this list of patients who already have a booking elsewhere.

Using the new ‘Unclear status’ filter alongside ‘to manually book’ and ‘awaiting response’ filters you can identify patients that have booked elsewhere. You can bulk cancel these patients by following the steps here, helping you focus your efforts on patients who don’t yet have a booking.

Using the ‘Unclear status’ filter alongside ‘booked’ filters you can identify and contact patients with multiple bookings to enquire which appointment(s) they want to keep.


Please note that patients with older bookings in the NBS (i.e. made before the 11th June) will take a little while longer to have their status updated in accuBook. You can continue to manage these patients in the same way you managed them before the introduction of this deduplication feature. We’ll keep you regularly informed on how far back the NBS data goes as it is populated.

If you still have any questions or concerns, feel free to chat with us using the green message bubble in the bottom right-hand corner of this page. 👉

Did this answer your question?