Slot Availability Management
There is a requirement to better ensure that the right appointment slots are made available to patients by
- enhancing the ability of provider organisations to control those appointments which can be booked by patients
- ensuring that consumer system obtains only available appointments which are appropriate to patients
- providing a more standardised categorisation of available appointment slots across provider systems so that inappropriate appointment booking is reduced
- providing where applicable the GP branch surgery location of available appointment slots
Appointment availability control
Provider systems SHALL:
- enable provider system end-users to designate the slots within their appointment books as 'PFS Appointments bookable'. This is a broad control to make slots in the appointment book available for booking through the PFS Appointments API
- enable provider system end-users to additionally specify which schedules/slots can be booked by a patient.
The provider system end-user SHALL be presented with an 'Organisation Type' list which reflects the Organisation type valueset.
The consumer system SHOULD send their booking Organisation Type and booking organization ODS code in the searchFilter parameter, as specified in the Search for free slots page, which the provider system will then use to determine the matching availability.
If the consumer system does not send any searchFilter parameters then the provider system will only return slots that are not restricted for booking to a patient.
The following table describes the matching rules for a provider system when applying the search filter passed by a consumer to the Search for free slots call:
| Search filter sent by consumer | Slots are returned that: |
|---|---|
| (no search filter) |
• Are marked as GP Connect bookable |
Booking window/embargo
It is recommended that provider systems also provide the functionality to enable the provider system end-user to control how far in advance external organisations should be allowed to book slots and how near to the actual slot time - that is, via 'Booking Window' or 'Embargo' rules.
Where such rules have been set, provider systems SHALL only return slots which respect these rules.
Appointment slot categorisation
Providers systems SHALL enable and require the mandatory selection by provider system end-users of a 'Practitioner Role' and 'Delivery Channel' for schedules/slots as part of the end-user GP Connect appointment configuration.
- The 'Practitioner Role' list SHALL reflect the Practitioner Role valueset.
- The 'Delivery Channel' list SHALL reflect the Delivery Channel valueset.
- Provider systems SHALL maintain alignment with the value sets.
- These values SHALL NOT be configurable/modifiable by end-users.
Branch surgery location
The Schedule resource has a mandatory 'Location' reference within the actor element. The referenced location SHALL be populated by provider systems with the name and address of the location where the appointment will take place. This will either be the GP practice where there are no branch surgeries OR the branch surgery.
Please see Branch surgeries for more information.