The specialist appointment checklist: what to take with you

Pack one folder the night before

The thing that goes wrong is almost never forgetting the appointment. It is arriving with everything in your head and nothing on paper, at 9am, on four hours of sleep.

Use one slim folder or a single plastic wallet. Not a carrier bag, not three envelopes. Everything goes in it the night before, and it lives by the front door with the car keys on top of it.

Pack it in the order you will be asked for things: identity first, medicines second, history third, questions last. If two of you are going, one person carries the folder and does not put it down.

Add the practical items to the same bag. Appointments run late, car parks want change, and phones die in waiting rooms.

• Referral letter or appointment letter, with the reference number visible
• Photo ID and insurance or coverage card, plus a photocopy of each
• The current list of medicines, printed, two copies
• One page of history in date order (see below)
• Previous results, discs or scan reports, and the portal login if there is one
• The names and phone numbers of every other doctor involved
• Your written questions, numbered, with space for answers
• A notebook and two pens — not just your phone
• Phone charger or battery pack, coins for parking, water, something to eat
• Your parent's glasses and hearing aid, if they use them

The medicine list: copy it, do not recall it

This is the first thing you will be asked for and the thing most often got wrong. Do not write it from memory at the traffic lights.

Sit at the kitchen table with the actual boxes and copy each label word for word: the name exactly as printed, the strength exactly as printed, the frequency exactly as the label states, the prescriber, and the date started if the box or the pharmacy record shows it. Copy. Do not summarise, convert or tidy up.

Include everything, not only prescriptions: anything bought over the counter, vitamins and supplements, creams, eye drops, inhalers, patches, and anything taken only occasionally. If you are unsure whether something belongs on the list, put it on and let the specialist decide.

Add a second short block: anything stopped in the last twelve months, with the date. If the record does not say why it stopped, write "reason not recorded — ask prescriber" rather than guessing.

Copy the allergy line exactly as it appears in your parent's own records. Print two copies. Bring the boxes as well if they fit in the bag — some offices would rather read the label than your handwriting.

One page of history, most recent first

The specialist's file may contain nothing but the referral letter. One page of dated history closes that gap faster than ten minutes of talking.

Write it as a table, newest at the top, one line per event: date, what happened, where, who was seen, and the outcome in one short clause. Cover the last two years, and anything older that keeps coming up.

Record observations and facts, not conclusions. "14 March — fell in the hallway, ambulance called, home the same night, no admission" is useful. "Getting worse" is not.

Include every hospital stay, procedure, emergency visit, fall, and every change to the medicine list. Add a short block at the bottom listing every professional currently involved: name, role, organisation, phone number, and the date of the last contact.

If there are images on a disc or in a portal, note the date they were taken, where they are held, and the login. Bring the disc anyway.

• Date | What happened | Where | Who was seen | Outcome
• A separate line for every hospital stay and emergency visit
• A separate line for every change to the medicine list
• A closing block: every professional currently involved, with phone numbers
• Where the scans and results are held, and how to open them

Write the questions before you walk in

Under pressure, people ask the question they rehearsed in the car and forget the three that actually mattered. Write them down and number them. Eight is the practical ceiling.

Put the two you cannot leave without at the top, and say so out loud at the start: "I have two questions I need answered, and six if there is time." That single sentence changes how the fifteen minutes are spent.

Leave four ruled lines under each question. You are going to write in the room, and a blank page invites you to write nothing.

Useful shapes to adapt:

• What are you looking at, and what would you like to happen next?
• What should we write down at home between now and the next appointment?
• Who do we call if something changes — and after hours?
• What does this mean for day-to-day life at home?
• Is there anything you need from us, or from another doctor, before the next step?
• When is the next appointment, who books it, and what happens if we hear nothing?
• Can we have that in writing, and will a copy go to the primary care doctor?
• Who is the named contact in your team, and what is the direct number?

In the room, one person writes

If two of you go, decide in the car park who is writing. The other person listens and asks. Doing both badly is the default and it costs you the appointment.

Write close to verbatim wherever you can. Ask for spellings — of the doctor's name, of the team, of anything named. Write the date at the top of the page and the time you went in.

Capture the administrative detail that is easy to lose and expensive to chase: any test being arranged, with the date, the location and any instructions the clinic gives you; who is sending what to whom, and by when; the direct number for the team; the name of the person who will call you.

Before you stand up, ask the two closing questions every time: "Who do I call with a question about this?" and "Can I have this in writing?" Then read your own notes back to the room in three sentences and let them correct you. Thirty seconds there saves a week of phone calls.

The ten minutes afterwards

Do not drive off. Sit in the car and finish the page while it is still in your head. Fill in the half-sentences, write the date of anything that was arranged, and mark anything you did not understand with a question mark so it goes on the next question sheet.

Then file it, once, properly:

• Appointment page into the appointment log, newest at the front
• Any new phone number onto the emergency contact sheet, not into your phone alone
• The next date into the shared calendar, with the location and the reference number
• Any change to the medicine list copied onto the master list, with today's date
• Photograph every page and drop it in the shared folder before you start the engine
• Send the sibling five lines: date, who you saw, what was decided, what happens next, what you need from them

Questions