How double-booking protection works

The diary will not let the same practitioner be in two places at once. This is enforced at the database level, not just in the screen you happen to be looking at, so it holds no matter where a booking comes from.

What is protected

An appointment can never be saved if it overlaps another appointment for the same practitioner. That applies to:

• Appointments you create from the calendar.
• Reschedules: moving an appointment onto an occupied time is rejected.
• Online bookings from your public page.
• Waitlist claim links: if two patients tap the same freed-slot offer, only the first claim books; the second is told the appointment is no longer available.

What you see

If you try to create or move an appointment into an occupied time, the drawer shows That slot clashes with another appointment and nothing is saved. Choose a different time and save again.

Why database-level matters

Two people can be using the diary at the same moment: you at the desk, a patient booking online, another patient tapping a claim link. Because the overlap rule is enforced when the booking is written, not when the page was loaded, the first one in wins cleanly and the other is refused. There is no window in which both can squeeze through.

One thing it deliberately allows

The rule is per practitioner. Two different practitioners can, of course, see patients at the same time; that is a normal clinic day, not a clash.