General Practice Appointment Data – GPAD

Variations in how general practice Appointment books are used and how the different IT systems function mean that the current GP Appointment publication has limitations. This could potentially give an incomplete picture of overall activity and workload in general practice. NHS England has worked with GP Appointment book system suppliers and volunteer general practices to develop and test a range of improvements to ensure that published general practice Appointment data fairly represents the Appointment activity carried out across practices and general practice providers in England.

PCNs are incentivised through the Investment and Impact Fund (IIF) for their practices completing both the mapping of local Appointment slots to the new standard Appointment categories and improvements in overall Appointment data quality therefore confirming they are submitting high-quality Appointment data.

The GP Appointments Data (GPAD) Dashboard provides information about scheduled activity and usage of GP Appointments at a practice level. The dashboard aims to inform users about activity in their practice and the impact of seasonal pressures on management information. The GP Appointment data dashboard and user guide contain details on how to access the dashboard.

Benefits for GP Practices

  • understand practice activityand workload across the month and during the year.
  • identify pressure pointsthat need mitigating for the benefit of staff and patients.
  • plan deployment of extra and existing staff, as general practice undertakes its biggest-ever workforce expansion.
  • view PCN activity
  • standardise Appointment types across the PCN
  • meet IIF requirements for PCN DES
  • also helps those working with General Practice to have much more accurate and timely data to see how pressures change and to support General Practice to respond

Resources

Access to Records