It is possible to make one-off changes to individual days in the calendar by marking practitioners as 'Unavailable', and you can mark regular unavailability in the calendar using schedules.

Breaks are times when the practitioner is not working and therefore unavailable to see patients. Typically breaks are used for lunch breaks.

Scheduled breaks

Breaks that have been set in the practitioner's schedule are shown in the override modal. The name is shown along with the start and end time for each break.

The start and end times of the break can be amended, however the name cannot be changed.

If the start or end time for the break is changed, this decouples the break from the schedule. The break will only be adjusted for the selected date and any future changes to the break in the schedule will not be reflected for that day.

A break can also be removed for the date selected but clicking the bin icon.

Adding a new break

To add a new break for a single day, click the Add Break button.

You will be able to enter a name for the break. This can be edited later if needed. The start and end time will default to 1pm-2pm and can be updated to suite.

New breaks are added for the single day only and do not affect any practitioner schedules defined in settings.

Practitioner availability and break times are accounted for in practitioner utilisation calculations. A 1hr lunch break recorded in the schedule or via the override described above reduces the available hour of the practitioner by 1 for that day. A 1hr appointment or recurring appointment without an associated patient would not reduce the available hours and will instead show 1hr of unutilised time.