Appointment Categorisation Standard
Background
The General Practice Appointments Data Programme is work commissioned of NHS Digital by NHS England. It supports work to improve patient access to general practice through the collection and publication of appointments data. This data is collected and published with the intention of being better able to understand how appointments are planned and used locally so that there is better information available to support local and national policy and planning decisions. It is not currently possible to reliably identify the purpose of an appointment from their ‘Slot Type’ descriptions (e.g. “XXXX”, “Default”, “Only to be used by Joan”) as they are entered by general practice. This limits how useful the data is and hampers the realisation of the expected benefits of the existing appointments data collections.
It is understood that general practice uses their appointment management systems for more than appointments, with them becoming time management systems in most practices. Appointments are booked for reviewing test results, signing prescriptions, admin, training, coffee breaks etc.
The use of appointment management systems for more general tasks and time management, coupled with vague or confusing ‘Slot Type’ descriptions makes it impossible to reliably say which appointments are intended to be patient facing, which are clinical but not patient facing and which are being used to block out time for admin, training breaks etc.
To make the purpose and context of an appointment more transparent it is proposed that a national appointment categorylist be defined and implemented across general practice in England. Each ‘Slot Type’ that has been created and will subsequently be created locally within the appointments management system will be associated with a defined and described Appointment Category.
The categories will be defined in agreement with key stakeholders through a process of iterative development and added to existing appointments data collections that to test the business value and benefits that can be delivered through their implementation.
Through the iterative development, application and testing of the appointment categories outputs are required that will ensure that the categories are useful for a range of local, regional and national stakeholders including but not limited to:
- General Practice
- Clinical Commissioning Groups
- Primary Care Networks
- NHS Digital
- NHS England and Improvement
- NHS X
- Department of Health and Social Care
- Research Organisations
Objectives
From April 2020 General Practice will be required to categorise appointment slots, using a National Standard that will: -
- Support a consistent measure of any developed waiting time metric;
- Support a consistent measure of any developed capacity and utilisation metric; and
- Be used by patients, practices, CCGs and Nationally to monitor compliance with any developed metrics.
To enable this NHS England will commission NHS Digital to define, agree and implement a set of appointment categories that are:
- Usable by general practice;
- Useful for general practice in the analysis of appointment capacity and utilisation; and
- Useful for national and regional consumers of appointment data in the segmentation of the current data collection to better the understanding of activity scheduled in appointment systems in general practice.
The proposed implementation will deliver:
- The allocation of the appointment categories to appointments (including historic appointments) without an unacceptable burden to general practice;
- The accurate collection of the new appointment category field to be included in the dissemination of data to NHS England and in NHS Digital appointment data publications;
- The new appointment data category to be included in the General Practice Work Load Tool dashboard and other general practice appointment reporting capabilities.
During alpha / private beta stages will validate benefits and consider emergent benefits / opportunities from making the National Category available through system api’s, i.e. IM1 (bulk & pfs) and GP Connect.
Summary of Change
General Practice will be required to categorise Appointment slots using a National Standard for Categorisation. This will be achieved by mapping local Solution Appointment Slots to nationally defined Appointment Categories.
Detailed below are the specific changes to the requirements within the updated Standards.
Appointments Management - GP - Standard
Additions:
| Epic Mapping | Requirement ID | Requirement Text | Level |
|---|---|---|---|
| C5E5 | GP-APMAN-06 | Slot/Appointment details - Characteristics – National Slot Type Category Ability for Practice Users to define mappings between local Slot Types and a National Slot Type Category using categories defined by NHS Digital. This mapping to be mandatory for all slots. Where no National Slot Type Categories are provided by NHS Digital, Suppliers to record mapping as 'Not Set'. | MUST |
| C5E5 | GP-APMAN-07 | Slot/Appointment details – Import and Display – National Slot Type Category Suppliers to import the National Slot Type Category file and display the following information to users:
This is to support the mapping of a local Slot Type to a National Slot Type Category as defined in requirement Appointment Categorisation Standard#GP-APMAN-06. Any National Slot Type Category with an End Date to be visible to the user, but not selectable for mapping. An example of the NHS Digital National Slot Type Category file to be imported can be found here. | MUST |
| C5E5 | GP-APMAN-08 | Supplier Set Mappings Supplier to be able to set local Slot Type to National Slot Type Category mappings in bulk for Practices. These bulk mappings will be provided by NHS Digital via a CSV file. An example can be found here. | MUST |
| C5E5 | GP-APMAN-09 | Additional National Slot Type Categories The Supplier will deploy additional National Slot Type Categories published by NHS Digital within 6 weeks. | MUST |
| C5E5 | GP-APMAN-10 | Appointment management - Retrieve Appointments Retrieve available Appointments by browsing/searching/filtering by 'National’ Slot Type Category. | MAY |
| C5E6 | GP-APMAN-11 | Dashboard configuration and filtering Allow Practice User to configure and filter the information presented on the dashboard by 'National’ Slot Type Category. | MAY |
General Practice Appointments Data Reporting
Additions:
| Requirement ID | Data Item | Requirement Text | |
|---|---|---|---|
WPAD-DI-026 | National Slot Type Category | The National Slot Type Category of the Appointment Slot as at the point the data is to be extracted. Where National Slot Type Category mapping for the Slot Type associated with the Appointment changes, then this change will not be reflected in the delta of data to be returned. | MUST |
WPAD-DI-027 | SDS Role Profile ID | The role profile ID managed by the NHS Spine Directory Service that is stored against an individual in the source Solution (see 'Associated Smartcard (as per Information Governance)' element of requirement GP-03.4-02 in Resource Management - Standard). Suppliers to return the SDS Role Profile ID associated with the Appointment Slot as at the point the data is to be extracted. | MUST |
WPAD-DI-028 | Local Job Role | This is the locally defined job role as recorded in the source Solution (see 'Role(s) (for/within the Practice)' element of requirement GP-03.4-02 in Resource Management - Standard). This is the raw data as recorded via the Resource Management Solution and associated with the Appointment Slot as at the point the data is to be extracted. This does not require any mapping to any value list. | MUST |
WPAD-DI-029 | Appointment Offered Method | The most recent method by which the Appointment Slot was offered before being booked as at the point the data is to be extracted. As a minimum this must indicate whether the Appointment Slot was offered online or not. Where available, Suppliers should also return any other values applicable to this field that indicate the Appointment Offered Method (e.g. 111, Telephone). Data to be returned as per the format in the Appointments Management - GP Solution. Any necessary reference data should also be made available to NHS Digital for analytical purposes. (i.e. 1 = Online). | MUST |
Changes:
Key:
- Changed requirement
Deleted requirement
| Requirement ID | Data Item | Requirement Text | |
|---|---|---|---|
WPAD-TS3-002 | Suppliers will agree with NHS Digital the exact format and structure of the csv file(s) to be submitted ahead of the first submission of data and provide copies of these as file templates. NHS Digital will make these templates available via SEFT each week. The initial format is shown in the linked Excel file below. This is to ensure consistency in the way the data is returned. |
Full Specification
The following new versions of existing Standards have now been published to support this National Standard: