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A016: Book or Defer Appointment (Deprecated)

Status:

Deprecated

This endpoint has been deprecated, meaning you should not use it for new integrations.

Instead, please use our newer e-RS FHIR API solution which is documented here: https://digital.nhs.uk/developer/api-catalogue/e-referral-service-fhir

Description

Book an appointment

Having searched for available appointment slots using A015: Retrieve Appointment Slots, this API allows the requestor to book a referral into an appointment slot. When a booking attempt is made, e-RS will communicate directly with the booking system which made the appointment slot available to e-RS. This interaction has 2 minutes to complete. As such a booking attempt may be successful or result in a failure.

Defer an appointment

Where there are either no appointment slots available, or the booking failure cases specified, the requestor is allowed to defer to provider (i.e. defer the responsibility for providing a suitable appointment onto the affected service).

Note: The act of deferring to provider is sometimes referred by users as an ‘appointment slot issue’ (ASI).

For both the booking and deferring to provider actions, the same endpoint is used.

Resource URL

The act of Booking or Deferring to provider is made by POSTing a new FHIR Appointment resource to e-RS.

Method URL Authentication
POST {Base URL}/STU3/v1/Appointment Session Token (Details)
  • {Base URL} (Dev1) = https://api.dev1.ers.ncrs.nhs.uk/ers-api

BOOK APPOINTMENT INPUT

Book Operation Definition

Book Prerequisite Conditions

  • The user is authenticated with an effective business function of Referring Clinician or Referring Clinician Admin
  • An existing unbooked appointment request must exist
  • An appointment slot search, using endpoint A015, must have been performed to obtain the relevant appointment slot details

When a booking attempt is made, e-RS will communicate directly with the booking system which made the appointment slot available to e-RS. This interaction has 2 minutes to complete. As such a booking attempt may be successful or result in a failure.

Book Request Operation: Header

Field Name Value
XAPI_ASID The “Accredited System ID” issued to the third party
HTTP_X_SESSION_KEY The session key generated by the Authentication and Authorisation APIs
Content-Type */*, application/fhir+json

Book Request Operation: Parameters

The body of the Request consists of a FHIR ‘Appointment’ resource which defines the Appointment to be booked.

The key fields are:

  • The slot.reference field which contains a Reference to a Slot that was returned by the A015 endpoint
  • The incomingReferral[0].reference field which contains a Reference to the ReferralRequest for which the Appointment is being booked. Note that this reference is to a specific version of the ReferralRequest and that the version must be the latest (i.e., current) version
  • The participant[0].actor.reference field which references the Service that the booking is being made to
Name Cardinality Type Description
resouceType 1..1 Identifier Fixed value of ‘Appointment’
status 1..1   Must be value “booked”
description 1..1 String Must be value “e-Referral Appointment”
start 1..1 DateTime DateTime of the start of the Slot
end 1..1 DateTime DateTime of the end of the Slot
slot.reference 1..1 Reference Reference to the slot to which the booking is to be made
created 1..1 DateTime Should be current DateTime
incomingReferral[0].reference 1..1 Reference Reference to the ReferralRequest to which the booking is being made.
(This must reference the latest specific version of the Referral Request)
participant[0] 1..1   Participant for service
participant[0].actor.identifier 1..1   Identifier of the Service using system “http//fhir.nhs.net/Id/ers-service”
participant[1] 0..1   Participant for Allocated Clinician (optional)
participant[1].actor.identifier 1..1   Identifier of the Practitioner who is the Allocated Clinician using system “http//fhir.nhs.net/Id/sds-user-id”

Additional Notes:

  1. e-Referrals checks that the ReferralRequest identified by incomingReferral[0] is unbooked
  2. e-Referrals checks that the DateTime values in the start and end fields match the start and end times of the slot identified by slot.reference
  3. e-Referrals checks that the slot identified by slot.reference is associated with the service identified by participant[0]
  4. e-Referrals checks that the service identified by participant[0] is a directly bookable service on the shortlist of the ReferralRequest identified by incomingReferral[0]
  5. If participant[1] is present, e-Referrals checks that the slot identified by slot.reference is actually allocated to the clinician identified by participant[1]

Book Example Request

BOOK APPOINTMENT OUTPUT

Book Response: Success

On success a FHIR Appointment resource is returned containing the newly created appointment.

Further details of the FHIR representation can be found with the example response below.

Book Example Response

Additional Notes:

  1. The ‘versionId’ of the created Appointment resource is returned
  2. An additional profile is listed in the meta.profiles
  3. The version of the incomingReferral reference has incremented from the version in the Request
  4. The name of the service has been added to the participant[0] action as the display field

Book Response: Failure

If an error occurs, the relating HTTP status will be returned in the header.

Where status code 422 (Unprocessable Entity) is returned then an eRS-OperationOutcome-1 will be included in the body, as detailed below:

OutcomeKey Description
FORBIDDEN User associated with the API session is not logged in with a Business Function of Referring Clinician or Referring Clinician Admin
INAPPROPRIATE_SLOT Failure due to mismatch between slot and Service or Appointment Request
INAPPROPRIATE_VALUE A value is inappropriate in association with other values. See ‘diagnostic’ field for details.
INVALID_REQUEST_STATE The incomingReferral[0] is not an unbooked initial ReferralReqest.
INVALID_CODE A value for a Code field does not contain a valid value in the Coding system.
INVALID_VALUE A value is invalid. See ‘diagnostic’ field for details.
MISSING_VALUE A mandatory field is missing
NO_RELATIONSHIP User associated with the API session does not have a Legitimate Relationship with the ReferralRequest.
PAS_NOT_RESPONDING The attempt to book the appointment in the Service Provider’s Patient Administration System failed.
PATIENT_ERROR The Patient associated with the ReferralRequest cannot be booked via e-Referrals.
REFERENCE_NOT_FOUND The ReferralRequest referenced by incomingReferral[0] does not exist or is the wrong type or the slot referenced by slot.reference does not exist
REFERRAL_LOCKED The ReferralRequest is currently locked by another user.
SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE Indicates that a service is no longer available
SLOT_NOT_AVAILABLE Indicates that a slot is no longer available
UNABLE_TO_CONFIRM_APPOINTMENT The Service Provider’s Patient Administration System has indicated that the slot is no longer available
VERSION_CONFLICT The version of the ReferralRequest referenced by incomingReferral[0] is not the latest version.

In all the above cases, an accompanying “diagnostic” message in the FHIR OperationOutcome response provides more information.

DEFER APPOINTMENT INPUT

Defer Prerequisite Conditions

  • The user is authenticated with an effective business function of Referring Clinician or Referring Clinician Admin
  • The user has:
  • Created a referral and shortlisted one or more bookable services via A011: Create Referral
  • Very recently searched for available appointment slots using A015: Retrieve Appointment Slots
    • The Service Search Criteria and shortlisted services used to retrieve appointments should be the same as that saved against the referral. This is to ensure only appropriate appointments are offered to the user, and any booking and defer to provider rejections later are minimised.
      Note: A Supplier should be able to obtain the current service search criteria and shortlisted services via A005 Retrieve Referral API
  • A requestor may only defer to provider in the following cases:
    • One or more appointments are available at a service, but the booking attempt fails because the provider PAS says the slot is no longer available. It is therefore permissible to defer to this service
    • One ore more appointments are available at a service, but the booking attempt fails because e-RS knows the slot has been taken by another user. It is therefore permissible to defer to this service
    • One or more appointments are available at a service, but the booking attempt fails because e-RS does not receive a response within the 2 minute timeout period. It is therefore permissible to defer to this service
    • The service at which the patient would like an appointment at has no slots. It is therefore permissible to defer to this service

Note: The requestor must not attempt to defer to provider in any other cases. This includes where one or more appointment slots are available and the patient does not ‘like’ the current options. The Authority will audit use of this functionality over time to ensure this is not being misused.

See additional details below for more information

The table below details the permitted flows for Deferring to provider by detailing what indicators the requestor will have as a result of a Book or Slot Search attempt, mapped against the Defer to provider “reason” they would need to supply to the Defer to provider Endpoint in order to be successful

Scenario OutcomeKey Returned from attempt to “book” Defer “reason” Input required to Defer (via Reason.Coding.System.Value)
A) Successful Slot Search
B) Attempt to Book to slot
C) Response received from Book attempt shows that the identified Appointment Slot is no longer available
SLOT_NOT_AVAILABLE SLOT_NOT_AVAILABLE
A) Successful Slot Search
B) Attempt to Book slot
C) The slot has been “taken” and is no longer available in the Provider Clinical System
PAS_RESPONDED_WITH_ERROR SLOT_NOT_AVAILABLE
A) Successful Slot Search
B) Attempt to Book slot
C) Booking failed because of a timeout or messaging error
PAS_NOT_RESPONDING BOOKING_ATTEMPT_PROBLEM
A) Slot Search returns empty N/A - empty bundle from Slot Search NO_SLOTS_AT_SERVICE

Defer Request Operation: Header

Field Name Value
XAPI_ASID The “Accredited System ID” issued to the third party
HTTP_X_SESSION_KEY The session key generated by the Authentication and Authorisation APIs
Content-Type */*, application/fhir+json

Defer Request Operation: Parameters

The body of the Request consists of a FHIR ‘Appointment’ resource which defines the reason for Deferring to provider and may include the slot to which a book attempt was made.

The key fields are:

  • A “status” field with value “proposed”
  • A “reason” field identifying a coding system
  • Containing a “code” value of either:
    • “NO_SLOTS_AT_SERVICE”
    • “SLOT_NOT_AVAILABLE”
    • “BOOKING_ATTEMPT_PROBLEM”
  • A “description” field with a value of “e-Referral Appointment”
  • Optionally, a “slot” reference indicating the Slot Id (where a previous “attempt to book” was made)
  • This reference is by e-RS Slot Id
  • Optionally, a “comment” field containing a string
  • A ‘incomingReferral’ field that is a reference to a FHIR ReferralRequest. This reference includes:
  • The UBRN of the ReferralRequest
  • The version number of the latest version of the ReferralRequest.
  • “participant” field identifying the Service Id of the Service being deferred-to
Field Cardinality Permitted values and notes
resourceType 1..1 Must be “Appointment”
meta.profile 1..1 “https://fhir.hl7.org.uk/STU3/StructureDefinition/CareConnect-Appointment-1”
language 1..1 Must be “en”
status 1..1 Must be “Proposed”
reason 1.1 The Deferral Reason
reason.coding 1.1 Coding for the reason
reason.coding.system 1.1 https://fhir.nhs.uk/STU3/CodeSystem/eRS-ReviewReason-1
reason.coding.system.value 1.1 “e-Referral Appointment”
slot.reference 0..1 Reference to a slot, e.g. “Slot/592200601” by e-RS Slot Id
Comment 0..1 String. Not mandatory, but restricted to 1000 char
incomingReferral.reference 1..1 Reference to the ReferralRequest to which the booking is being made.
This must reference the latest specific version of the Referral Request
participant 1..1 Participant for service
participant.actor 1..1 Actor for service
participant.actor.identifier 1..1 Identifier for service
participant.actor.identifier.system 1..1 https//fhir.nhs.uk/Id/ers-service
participant.actor.identifier.value 1..1 e-RS Service Id
participant.status 1..1 “accepted”

Additional Notes:

e-RS will perform some validation to check that the defer to provider attempt is permissible. As such it is important that the requestor checks the current availability appointment slots to minimise any rejections. E.g. Ensure there are truly no slots available

Defer Request Example

DEFER APPOINTMENT OUTPUT

Defer Response: Success

On success a FHIR Appointment resource is returned containing the newly created appointment.

The fields are the same as the Appointment resource in the request with the following changes:

  • The version number in the history of the ReferralRequest has incremented.
  • The HTTP Response Code is 201
  • The HTTP Response includes a ‘Location:’ header field where the value of the field is
    • [base]/[type]/[id]/_history/[vid]
    • Where [type] is the resource type, [id] is its unique Id and [vid] is its version
  • The version will always be the latest version
  • if a “slot” reference indicating the Slot Id was submitted, this is NOT returned

Defer Response Example

Defer Response: Failure

If an error occurs, the relating HTTP status will be returned in the header.

Where status code 422 (Unprocessable Entity) is returned then an eRS-OperationOutcome-1 will be included in the body, as detailed below:

OutcomeKey Description
FORBIDDEN User associated with the API session is not logged in with a Business Function of Referring Clinician or Referring Clinician Admin
INVALID_VALUE “Description must be “e-Referral Appointment” 
INAPPROPRIATE_VALUE “A reference to a slot should only be provided when the reason for the deferral is due to a specific slots being unavailable (SLOT_NOT_AVAILABLE)”
MISSING_VALUE slot’ is mandatory, but was not supplied
NO_SUCH_REQUEST A Request does not exist for this UBRN.
REFERRAL_LOCKED The Request is already locked
VERSION_CONFLICT The UBRN version number is not current.
NO_RELATIONSHIP The user does not have a legitimate relationship with this referral.
PATIENT_SENSITIVE An error occurred while retrieving the requested patient. Do not attempt again.
INAPPROPRIATE_VALUE The selected service is not on the shortlist for the referral
SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE The selected service is not available.
INVALID_STATE Service (id) is not directly bookable
INVALID_REQUEST_TYPE ubrn is not for an Appointment request’
INVALID_REQUEST_STATE The referral is not in an ‘Unbooked’ state
INVALID_REQUEST_STATE The UBRN is not for an initial referral
INVALID_REQUEST_STATE Rejected or Cancelled Referrals cannot be deferred
INVALID_REQUEST_STATE Deferral already in progress
INVALID_REQUEST_STATE Deferral outcome in progress
REFERENCE_NOT_FOUND No slot is found for the Slot Id
THIS_SLOT_IS_AVAILABLE Slot is currently available
INAPPROPRIATE_VALUE The slot does not belong to a Service on the Shortlist
INAPPROPRIATE_SLOT The slot provided is not suitable. Perform a Slot Search with the current Search Criteria to progress
SLOTS_CURRENTLY_AVAILABLE There are currently future slots available, so you cannot defer to this Service to book
INVALID_VALUE The appointment.status.value is not valid. Only a booked or proposed appointment can be created.
INAPPROPRIATE_VALUE URBN does not relate to received Patient reference

In all the above cases, an accompanying “diagnostic” message in the FHIR OperationOutcome response provides more information.


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