GP Connect Appointment Checker

To access the Appointment Checker, you must be registered and have an NHS Mail account. Open the registration form.

You can use Appointment Checker:

• to view details of GP Connect appointments being shared by any practice with any other organisation
• to check GP practice appointments set up via an ICS, ICB or NHS111 organisation to help investigate configuration issues
• to see if configuration changes at a provider site (typically a GP practice) are visible to consumers such as 111 or a PCN. For example, a practice may be able to view slots available in the GP system but, due to a configuration error, these appointments may not actually be visible to a consumer

Appointment Checker will show:

In almost all circumstances, when appointment booking is a problem, the first thing to do is use Appointment Checker to see if the practice is providing appointments to the required consumer.

It is sometimes not obvious to the practice that the appointment slots they ‘think’ they have made available, and may be displaying as available on the local system, have a minor configuration error and are not visible to the consumer. Appointment Checker will confirm the availability.

Are the slot details correct?

Appointment Checker allows you to see details of the slots. Have they been configured with the correct 'Slot Type' and 'Mode of Appointment' (telephone or in person)? For additional guidance on descriptors and naming conventions when configuring slots and appointments, refer to GP Connect: Appointment Management.

These details and descriptors are visible to consumers and will need to be accurate to avoid confusion.

Are the appointment slots offered at a time that is useful to the consumer?

Distribution of slots throughout the day is recommended. If a practice has made all the appointments available before 11:00, this significantly decreases the chances of 111 organisations booking the patient back into the GP practice and consequently could delay the patient in receiving the care advice they need. You can refer to the example below.

What to do if slot times are unavailable

In this example from the GP Connect Appointment Checker, any NHS 111 search after 12:30 will not see an available appointment. Most calls to NHS 111 occur after 08:00; therefore the 08:00 appointment slots shown in the example are unlikely to be booked at any time.

GP Connect consumer organisations (for example NHS 111, another GP practice) are unable to book appointments in the past. The best practice is to advise GP Connect provider organisations (GP practices) to evenly distribute appointments throughout the day if possible.

What time should appointment slots be offered?

For every 3,000 registered patients, there should be at least one appointment released per day by the GP practice. There should also be a good spread of appointments throughout the day that will provide a 111 organisation with a good chance of booking a patient back into their registered GP practice.

This table below is an example of what one ICB has recommended to all its GP practices.

The practice used in the example below follows the recommended ICB advice. The practice list size is between 9,000 and 12,000 patients.

Appointment Checker can support up to 20 ODS code searches at a time. This is referred to as multi-search. To add this to your user profile, log a request with the National Service Desk.

If you are unable to search on the maximum (20) ODS codes, try searching on a smaller number in the first instance.

If this problem continues, log a call with the National Service Desk to investigate and resolve the problem.

The following process flow diagram can help to navigate and assess the issues described:

Process flow diagram un-booked appointments