Listening to Co-Designers: Calendar Sync for Appointments and Reminders

We often talk about the big things we're building at ProtoFlex - condition-specific tools, better data for clinical teams, more joined-up care. Every so often, a smaller idea comes out of our co-design sessions that reminds us how much impact a simple fix can have on someone's actual day.

This one came from our co-designers with lived experience of long-term conditions. The portal shows you what's coming up, but most people don't live their lives inside a patient portal - they're looking at their phone's calendar, alongside work meetings, school pickups, and everything else. If an appointment, a task, or a reminder only exists in one place, it's easy for it to get missed, double-booked, or simply forgotten about until the day arrives.

What We've Built

The request itself was refreshingly simple: let people add their ProtoFlex appointments, tasks and reminders to the calendar they already use, so everything sits in one place at a glance.

We're building exactly that. Patients will be able to get a personal calendar link from their portal and subscribe to it once from Outlook, Google Calendar, or Apple Calendar. Their upcoming appointments and reminders appear alongside everything else in their life. No separate app to check, no manual copying of dates.

Why This Came From Co-Design, Not a Spec Sheet

We didn't arrive at this by guessing what patients might want. It came directly out of conversations with people who actually live with the day-to-day admin of managing a long-term condition - juggling appointments across multiple services, trying to keep track of tasks between visits, and doing all of it on top of ordinary life.

It's a good example of why co-design is so valuable. It's a relatively simple feature but to someone managing their care day to day, it's the difference between an appointment they see coming and one that catches them out.

For more information about how co-design shapes the ProtoFlex roadmap, contact us.