Many of us now get notifications about appointments we have made at various places. But often when we get to the appointment we find that the person we have the appointment with is running late and we have to sit there and wait, sometimes a long time.

Whenever I have an appointment with my doctor I know she is often running late, so as a consequence, about 15 minutes before the appointment I ring the clinic and ask if she is running late. If she is, I ask how late and adjust the time I arrive, so that Im not sitting in a waiting room.

I originally started doing this when I first moved to Forestdale and we had a doctor at the local shopping centre. The receptionist at the time got used to me doing that and then she would ring me and tell me when to arrive, that way I could stay at home and work without having to sit in the doctors waiting room not working. I was self employed at the time.

I now no longer work but I still find I'm spending a lot of time in waiting rooms. At least I can do my non-paid work on my phone. Like I'm writing this while sitting in a doctor's waiting room at the moment.

Recently I had to have some specific tests and when I arrived at a pathology place I could not find a car park. Most likely this was because many people were sitting in waiting rooms. At another medical clinic I had this same issue, no were to park. When I got into the reception area, it was full of people, again most likely because the person they had the appointment with was running late. Hence the car parks are also full.

If everybody did what I do and rang to find out if the person was running late, the phones would be choker block. However the system they use for booking appointments would know if the peorson is running late. That information is not passed on to the people who are waiting for the appointment. I cannot see any reason why we should not have that non-identifying information.

A system could be put in place whereby you check a website to see if the person you have the appointment with, is running on time, and if they are not, an indication saying how much behind time they are running. Then you can arrange things so that you do not spend as much time waiting.

Considering it is often published on websites etc, the people you're going to have the appointment with, that doesn't seem to be a privacy issue. You would not have to put any information in, about yourself. Your only asking about who you have the appointment witnh. No privacy issue with that.

The only issue some people may have is that it could become known the people that are often running late. I'm not sure if that is a bad thing.

As one of the biggest appointment makers, is Government, particularly to do with hospitals and medical appointments, they would be the best to lead the way.

Other than the convenience for everybody and not having to sit around in waiting rooms it could also reduce the size of waiting rooms and parking and traffic congestion.

The excuse often given for not doing things is that there is not enough money. The alternative is larger waiting rooms, more time wasted waiting and a requirement for more parking and roadways, all of which will cost a lot more than writing a bit of software.

In relation to government, if you understand modern monetary theory, then in reality ther in no lack of money.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_monetary_theory