Definition

The Appointment_Slot extract represents individual appointment slots within EMIS Web. Each slot corresponds to a specific time at which a patient can be seen, capturing the booking date and time, planned duration, patient attendance outcome, and links to the session, organisation, and patient involved.

Information

The Appointment_Slot extract is the most granular level of appointment data in the IM1 feed. It contains one row per appointment slot and records the full lifecycle of that slot — from scheduling through to attendance or non-attendance. From schema version 8.2 onwards, additional fields include isblocked, nationalslotcategoryname, contexttype, and servicesetting to support national slot categorisation.

Each slot is uniquely identified by slotguid within the agreement scope.

Key Identifiers

• slotguid: The unique EMIS identifier for this appointment slot.
• patientguid: References the booked patient in Admin_Patient.
• organisationguid: References the practice in Admin_Organisation.
• sessionguid: References the parent session in Appointment_Session.
• dnareasoncodeid: References the clinical code for the DNA (Did Not Attend) reason, if applicable.

Slot Timing

• appointmentdate: The date the appointment is scheduled.
• appointmentstarttime: The scheduled start time.
• planneddurationinminutes: The intended duration of the appointment.
• sendintime: The time the patient was sent in to see the clinician.
• lefttime: The time the patient left after the appointment.

Attendance and Status

• didnotattend: Indicates whether the patient did not attend (DNA).
• slottype: Classifies the slot type (e.g., Telephone, Face to Face).
• bookeddate, bookedtime: When the appointment was booked.
• isblocked: Indicates whether the slot has been blocked and is unavailable to patients.
• nationalslotcategoryname: The national slot category classification.
• contexttype: The context in which the appointment takes place.
• servicesetting: The service setting for the appointment (e.g., Primary Care, Community).

Practical Use

flowchart TB
  subgraph container["Data Collection"]
    n1["Slot Date & Time"]
    n2["Appointment Status"]
    n3["Patient & Session Link"]
  end

  n17["Organisation 1"] --> n7
  n17["Organisation 1"] --> n5
  n18["Organisation 2"] --> n6
  n18["Organisation 2"] --> n8

  n7["Patient 123"] --> container
  n5["Patient 98"] --> container
  n6["Patient 456"] --> container
  n8["Patient 47"] --> container

  container --> n16["Gather slot data"]
  n16 --> n14["ETL"]
  n14 --> n15["Appointment_Slot Model"]

  n7:::rect
  n5:::rect
  n6:::rect
  n8:::rect