Patients can be entered into the booking system either as the consent forms arrive, or sequentially from an operating list.

Bookings can be made either for theatre (surgical) facilities, non-theatre (medical) facilities such as recovery or the anaesthesia room, or for education or assessment appointments..

The difference between theatre and non-theatre bookings is that theatre bookings are much more rigid in the rules used to book the patient, especially with regard to the number of patients that are able to be fitted into an operating session.

By comparison, procedures or services provided in non-theatre facilities usually have more flexibility around the time the patient is seen and the duration of the event. 
Some examples of bookings for non-theatre facilities would be to perform pre-anaesthetic consultations, blood transfusions, steroid injections etc.

Pre-admission assessments or education events can be booked using a simpler booking session which utilises the existing referral made for the operation.

The details of the operation will normally be entered by administration staff prior to the patient being admitted.