Part of Data quality guidance for general practice using SystmOne
Managing surplus appointments
Unused appointments are appointments that were made available but not booked by patients. These are important as they help us understand utilisation of appointments in practices; see scenario 1 of worked example below.
Surplus appointments are appointments that were created in sessions or lists to ensure that sufficient coverage (i.e. creation of contingency appointment slots) for an unknown number of patients; in effect creating more slots than you may require.
In these circumstances, the unfilled slots are not unused appointments but rather a function of creating contingency slots (i.e. slots created but not required), and therefore these surplus slots should be removed.
Inclusion of these surplus contingency slots as unfilled appointments will produce inaccurate data and reporting, showing lower than actual utilisation; see scenario 2 of worked example below.
This is important for flu vaccination and other scheduled mass immunisation purposes.
To avoid erroneous reporting of unused appointment capacity, unfilled contingency slots in the following categories should ideally be deleted after the session ends:
- unscheduled/unplanned clinical activity
- walk-in, clinical triage
- care home visit
Worked example
Where a session or list has a regularly defined number of appointments.
- The total number of appointments is recorded as AVAILABLE
- The number of appointments with patient interaction is counted as BOOKED
- The remaining appointments is counted as UNFILLED
With this information utilisation can be calculated.
Scenario 1. Regular sessions with unused appointments
A session created with a regularly defined number of slots (appointments)
- Number of AVAILABLE appointments 20
- Number of BOOKED appointments 18
- Number of UNFILLED appointments 2
% Utilisation = 18 ÷ 20 = 90%
Scenario 2. Triage list with surplus appointments
A list or session created with contingency slots, as a way to manage unknown demand. For example, clinical triage sessions, flu vaccinations, patient lists and home visits.
- Number of AVAILABLE appointments 40
- Number of BOOKED appointments 20
- Number of UNFILLED appointments 20
% Utilisation = 20 ÷ 40 = 50%
This is inaccurate as only 20 slots were required, the remaining 20 were unfilled / surplus contingency (which is different to unused). It is important that these unfilled slots are not reported and therefore should be deleted from the lists or sessions where possible.
Last edited: 23 May 2023 1:42 pm