The Terrence Higgins Trust was one of the first charities to be set up in response to the HIV epidemic and has been at the forefront of the fight against HIV and AIDS ever since.

One of the many services offered by the trust is counselling for people recently diagnosed with HIV, a task requiring dozens of counsellors working at locations all over the UK.

The booking and management of counsellors, meeting venues, and keeping track of client availability has became a huge task with the constant need to inform clients and counsellors of cancellations and the scheduling of new appointments.

i-KOS tendered for the development of a bespoke online booking system; which, using the SiteSolved Content Management platform, enables the trust to schedule and maintain their many counselling contracts.

A web application was created allowing a system to be built to the exact specifications of the trust. The resulting web-based system enables counsellors to start a new series of counselling which pre-populates a central online diary for the coming months (usually 12 weekly appointments). At the heart of the online diary application is an automated e-mail reminder service which notifies the client, counsellor and venue in advance. Changes can be made to the appointment, and all interested parties are then immediately notified.

The result has been to dramatically reduce the time/management burden for the Trust and individual councillors whilst improving the communication process with clients. Recent updates have included a reporting tool fully-integrated into the system.