PFS Appointments

This guidance is under active development by NHS Digital and content may be added or updated on a regular basis.
Note: This is a draft version of the GP Connect PFS Appointments capability. The current version can be found using this link.

How to retrieve a patients appointments

Use case

This specification describes a single use case enabling the patient to retrieve future appointment bookings from a targeted provider system.

All future appointments for the patient, irrespective of the booking organisation, and irrespective of whether the appointment was booked via the GP Connect API, will be returned from the provider system.

Security

  • GP Connect utilises TLS Mutual Authentication for system level authorization
  • GP Connect utilises a JSON Web Tokens (JWT) to transmit clinical audit and provenance detail

Prerequisites

Consumer

The consumer system:

Consumer display requirements

Consumer systems SHALL support the following fields in order to provide the full context of the appointment in the current IM1 standard:

  • Start date and time
  • Slot type and schedule type (see Appointment.serviceType and Appointment.serviceCategory)
  • Location name
  • Practitioner role (e.g. General Medical Practitioner, Nurse)
  • Practitioner name and gender

API usage

Request operation

Search parameters

Provider systems SHALL implement the following search parameters:

Name Type Description Paths
start date Appointment start date Appointment.start

Consumer systems:

  • SHALL include two start search parameter with every request
    • One of the start search parameter SHALL be supplied with the ge search prefix. For example, start=ge2017-09-22, which indicates that the consumer would like appointments where the appointment start date is on or after "2017-09-22".
    • One of the start search parameter SHALL be supplied with the le search prefix. For example, start=le2017-09-25, which indicates that the consumer would like appointments where the appointment start date is on or before "2017-09-25"
  • SHALL only include the date component of the search parameter and not a time component. The date SHALL include day, month and year elements.
  • SHALL indicate to the end user that only appointments in the future will be returned from GP Connect and that the earliest that the user can request appointments is today's date

Diagram - Date range parameters

Provider systems:

  • SHALL support the search prefixes ge and le
  • SHALL return an error if any part of the consumer requested search range is in the past
    • If the consumer sends today's date the provider SHALL return all appointments for today, if the appointments are in the past because the current time is after the appointment time but the appointment start date is today's date, then the appointment SHALL still be returned in the response bundle
    • The error returned SHALL include a meaningful error message to indicate that the search parameters cannot request appointments in the past
  • SHALL return an error if either of the date parameters contain a time element
  • SHALL return an error if either of the two start date parameters are not sent with the consumers request

FHIR relative request

GET /Patient/[id]/Appointment?start=ge[lower_date_range_boundary]&start=le[upper_date_range_boundary]

FHIR absolute request

GET https://[proxy_server]/https://[provider_server]/[fhir_base]/Patient/[id]/Appointment?start=ge[lower_date_range_boundary]&start=le[upper_date_range_boundary]

Payload request body

N/A

Request response

Response headers

Provider systems are not expected to add any specific headers beyond that described in the HTTP and FHIR® standards.

Payload response body

Provider systems:

  • SHALL only return appointments where the start element is in the future (greater than or equal to the current date)

  • SHALL return a 200 OK HTTP status code on successful execution of the operation

  • SHALL return zero or more matching GPConnect-Appointment-1 resources in a Bundle of type searchset

  • SHALL include the URI of the GPConnect-Appointment-1 profile StructureDefinition in the Appointment.meta.profile element of the returned Appointment resources

  • SHALL include the versionId of the current version of each Appointment resource returned

  • SHALL return all appointments for the patient within the requested period signified by the start search parameter(s). All appointments including cancelled appointments should be returned as part of the response, no additional filtering should be applied.

  • SHALL populate Appointment.start, Appointment.end, Appointment.created elements in (UK) local time in the format yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ss+hh:mm, with the timezone offset +00:00 for UTC and +01:00 for BST

  • SHALL populate Appointment.minutesDuration

  • SHALL populate Appointment.serviceType.text with the practice defined slot type description, and where available Appointment.serviceCategory.text with a practice defined schedule type description (may be called session name or rota type).

  • SHALL meet General FHIR resource population requirements populating all fields where data is available, excluding those listed below

  • SHALL NOT populate the following fields:

    • specialty
    • reason

Error handling

Provider systems:

  • SHALL return a GPConnect-OperationOutcome-1 resource that provides additional detail when one or more request fields are corrupt or a specific business rule/constraint is breached. Refer to Development - FHIR API guidance - error handling for details of error codes.
  • SHALL return an error if any part of the consumer supplied date range is in the past. The OperationOutcome returned SHALL include a meaningful error message to indicate that the search parameters can not request appointments in the past.
  • Where the use of the start search parameter does not define a valid date range, HTTP Status code 422 with error code INVALID_PARAMETER will be returned. Additional details SHALL be returned in the diagnostics element.

Examples

Retrieve a patient's appointments

Request

Retrieve all appointments for patient with logical id 1001 which start between 2017-07-11 and 2017-09-14 inclusive:

GET /Patient/1001/Appointment?start=ge2017-07-11&start=le2017-09-14

Response when the patient has appointments in the date range provided

The response example includes two appointments for the patient, with the organisations that made the original bookings populated as included resources.

{
  "resourceType": "Bundle",
  "type": "searchset",
  "entry": [
    {
      "resource": {
        "resourceType": "Appointment",
        "id": "149",
        "meta": {
          "versionId": "1503310820000",
          "profile": [
            "https://fhir.nhs.uk/STU3/StructureDefinition/GPConnect-Appointment-1"
          ]
        },
        "contained": [
          {
            "resourceType": "Organization",
            "id": "1",
            "meta": {
              "profile": [
                "https://fhir.nhs.uk/STU3/StructureDefinition/CareConnect-GPC-Organization-1"
              ]
            },
            "identifier": [
              {
                "system": "https://fhir.nhs.uk/Id/ods-organization-code",
                "value": "A00123"
              }
            ],
            "type": [
              {
                "coding": [
                  {
                    "system": "https://fhir.nhs.uk/STU3/CodeSystem/GPConnect-OrganisationType-1",
                    "code": "gp-practice"
                  }
                ]
              }
            ],
            "name": "West Road GP Practice",
            "telecom": [
              {
                "system": "phone",
                "value": "03003035678"
              }
            ]
          }
        ],
        "extension": [
          {
            "url": "https://fhir.nhs.uk/STU3/StructureDefinition/Extension-GPConnect-BookingOrganisation-1",
            "valueReference": {
              "reference": "#1"
            }
          },
          {
            "url": "https://fhir.nhs.uk/STU3/StructureDefinition/Extension-GPConnect-PractitionerRole-1",
            "valueCodeableConcept": {
              "coding": [
                {
                  "system": "https://fhir.nhs.uk/STU3/CodeSystem/CareConnect-SDSJobRoleName-1",
                  "code": "R0600",
                  "display": "Specialist Nurse Practitioner"
                }
              ]
            }
          },
          {
            "url": "https://fhir.nhs.uk/STU3/StructureDefinition/Extension-GPConnect-DeliveryChannel-2",
            "valueCode": "In-person"
          }
        ],
        "status": "booked",
        "serviceCategory": {
          "text": "Nurse Appointments"
        },
        "serviceType": [
          {
            "text": "Nurse Appointment"
          }
        ],
        "description": "GP Connect Appointment description 148",
        "start": "2017-08-21T10:30:00+01:00",
        "end": "2017-08-21T10:50:00+01:00",
        "minutesDuration": 20,
        "slot": [
          {
            "reference": "Slot/544"
          },
          {
            "reference": "Slot/545"
          }
        ],
        "created": "2017-07-09T13:48:41+01:00",
        "comment": "Test Appointment Comment 148",
        "participant": [
          {
            "actor": {
              "reference": "Patient/1001"
            },
            "status": "accepted"
          },
          {
            "actor": {
              "reference": "Location/1"
            },
            "status": "accepted"
          },
          {
            "actor": {
              "reference": "Practitioner/2"
            },
            "status": "accepted"
          }
        ]
      }
    },
    {
      "resource": {
        "resourceType": "Appointment",
        "id": "150",
        "meta": {
          "versionId": "1503440820000",
          "profile": [
            "https://fhir.nhs.uk/STU3/StructureDefinition/GPConnect-Appointment-1"
          ]
        },
        "contained": [
          {
            "resourceType": "Organization",
            "id": "1",
            "meta": {
              "profile": [
                "https://fhir.nhs.uk/STU3/StructureDefinition/CareConnect-GPC-Organization-1"
              ]
            },
            "identifier": [
              {
                "system": "https://fhir.nhs.uk/Id/ods-organization-code",
                "value": "Z100"
              }
            ],
            "type": [
              {
                "coding": [
                  {
                    "system": "https://fhir.nhs.uk/STU3/CodeSystem/GPConnect-OrganisationType-1",
                    "code": "urgent-care"
                  }
                ]
              }
            ],
            "name": "North Ambulance Service",
            "telecom": [
              {
                "system": "phone",
                "value": "01111222333"
              }
            ]
          }
        ],
        "extension": [
          {
            "url": "https://fhir.nhs.uk/STU3/StructureDefinition/Extension-GPConnect-BookingOrganisation-1",
            "valueReference": {
              "reference": "#1"
            }
          },
          {
            "url": "https://fhir.nhs.uk/STU3/StructureDefinition/Extension-GPConnect-PractitionerRole-1",
            "valueCodeableConcept": {
              "coding": [
                {
                  "system": "https://fhir.nhs.uk/STU3/CodeSystem/CareConnect-SDSJobRoleName-1",
                  "code": "R0260",
                  "display": "General Medical Practitioner"
                }
              ]
            }
          },
          {
            "url": "https://fhir.nhs.uk/STU3/StructureDefinition/Extension-GPConnect-DeliveryChannel-2",
            "valueCode": "In-person"
          }
        ],
        "status": "booked",
        "serviceCategory": {
          "text": "General GP Appointments"
        },
        "serviceType": [
          {
            "text": "General GP Appointment"
          }
        ],
        "reason": [
          {
            "text": "tennis elbow"
          }
        ],
        "description": "GP Connect Appointment description 148",
        "start": "2017-08-17T11:20:00+01:00",
        "end": "2017-08-17T11:30:00+01:00",
        "minutesDuration": 10,
        "slot": [
          {
            "reference": "Slot/303"
          }
        ],
        "created": "2017-08-14T13:48:41+01:00",
        "participant": [
          {
            "actor": {
              "reference": "Patient/1001"
            },
            "status": "accepted"
          },
          {
            "actor": {
              "reference": "Location/1"
            },
            "status": "accepted"
          }
        ]
      }
    }
  ]
}

Response when the patient has no appointments in the date range provided


{
  "resourceType": "Bundle",
  "type": "searchset",
  "entry": []
}
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