Overview and background

GP Connect: Appointment Management helps primary care organisations to share appointments with other care settings, such as enhanced access hubs and NHS 111 to improve patient care.

GP Connect uses the concept of 'providers' and 'consumers'.

A provider is the organisation that provides an appointment slot or GP patient record to another.

A consumer is the organisation that:

• uses or consumes the appointment
• uses the patient record from the provider organisation

Most GP practices (providers) in England can use Appointment Management, so consumer organisations can share and manage their appointments to support joined-up patient care, and to allow appointment bookings directly from NHS 111.

All GP systems allow appointments to be shared with individual or multiple organisations. Proprietary booking solutions and approved integrated products can still be used, but GP Connect must be set up to enable NHS 111 referrals with the systems running in parallel.

For additional background information on GP Connect and GP Connect: Appointment Management including additional capabilities and functionality, refer to:

• NHS England GP Connect website
• GP Connect: Appointment Management

Use these tools to learn more about GP Connect appointment utilisation and availability:

• GP Connect: Appointment Checker
• GP Connect Utilisation Report (Power BI Reports)
• GP Connect Appointment Management web page