System
The Appointments and Health File
One place for the dates, the letters and the things you will be asked to remember.
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- Time in real life
- 45 minutes to set up; 10 minutes a month
- The change
- The household has one file per person for health information, and takes it to appointments.
- Ages
- All ages
- Reading
- 8 min
Reviewed by Sian Trombley, CCCFounder, Thrive Family Company
8 min read
Somebody in your household is expected to remember which month the referral was made, what the previous doctor said, the exact wording of the school's concern, and the name of a medication tried eighteen months ago.
That expectation is unreasonable, and it lands hardest exactly when a family is under the most strain — during the appointments that matter, while worried about a child.
A health file is not a project for organised people. It is a fifteen-minute habit that makes future-you considerably more competent in a room where competence helps your child.
One file per person
Paper folder or phone folder, whichever you will actually open. Per person, not per household — combined files become unnavigable at exactly the moment you need them. Each file holds four things: a one-page timeline, letters received, questions for next time, and a list of anything currently taken.
The one-page timeline
This is the piece that does the work. A single sheet with dated lines, one per contact: "March 2026 — GP, referred to community paediatrics for attention concerns." Nothing more. Ten words per line. When a clinician asks how long this has been going on, you hand over one page instead of reconstructing two years from memory.
- Date, who you saw, what was said, what happens next. Four fields, no prose.
- Add the line the same day, in the car park if necessary. A timeline written a fortnight later is a work of fiction.
- Include the things that went nowhere. Ruled-out routes are clinically useful and easy to forget.
- Keep it to one page. When it fills, start a new page and staple, rather than summarising and losing detail.
Before an appointment: the ten-minute prep
- 01
Write three questions, in priority order
You will typically get through two. Putting the one that matters most first is the whole of the strategy.
- 02
Write one sentence describing the current situation
Practised in advance and said in the first minute. Clinicians shape the appointment around the opening, so make the opening the real concern.
- 03
Bring the timeline
Handing over a single page changes the tone of an appointment more than any other intervention available to a parent.
- 04
Decide who is doing the talking
If two adults attend, agree in advance. If the child is old enough, ask what they want said and what they would rather you did not say.
Involving an older child
From around thirteen, a young person should know what is in their file and increasingly hold it. Offer the questions page to them before the appointment. Adolescents who are consulted about their own health information engage with treatment more readily than those who are managed — and there is a practical point too: they will need to carry all of this themselves in a few years.
A single page of dated lines does more for your child in an appointment than an excellent memory ever will.
Try this week
- 01Make one file for the person in your household with the most going on.
- 02Write the timeline from memory — imperfect is fine, and it improves from here.
- 03Add the three-question page before the next appointment.
- 04Write the line in the car park afterwards, before you drive home.
The therapist's perspective
In assessment work, the parents who arrive with a dated page are not better organised than everyone else. They usually started one after an appointment that went badly.
You are allowed to ask for a copy of any letter written about your child. Most families do not know this, and it fills the file quickly.
Sian
Founder, Thrive Family Company
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