(2) what percentage of outpatient appointments were made using choose and book in the last period for which figures are available; and how many urgent referrals have been made as a proportion of the total referrals.
In the week ending Sunday 24 September 2006, approximately 27 per cent. of general practitioner outpatient referrals were made using choose and book. No data are collected centrally on the priority of referrals.
The initial log-on to the choose and book application at the start of the day includes security and access controls as specified by the British Medical Association. The initial log-on session takes around 17 seconds and is only undertaken once at the start of the session. This is an important step in validating the credentials of the person accessing the system and helps to protect patient confidentiality. To complete the end-to-end booking process takes 48 seconds on average, if local infrastructure meets the minimum specified requirements and has been configured correctly.
Contracted specification times do not cover the end-to-end booking process. This is dependent on local national health service infrastructure and external systems for which the choose and book core application supplier cannot be accountable.
Specification times for performance of key elements of the core application are measured against a range of contractual transaction service levels. These include the following:
Transaction Not less than 95 percent, of the aggregate transactions times-Less or equal to (seconds) Create appointment request 2.4 Create referral 3.0 Update referral 3.6 View booking guidance 1.3 View directory of services 1.6 Display book appointment page 0.6 Display prescription summary 0.6 Display appointment summary print preview 0.9
Each of these contractual transaction service levels has been met during the last three months.
This information is not collected centrally.
The information is not available centrally. General practitioner practices, using the Choose and Book activity work list, can monitor converted and unconverted unique booking reference numbers for patients in the practice.