APPOINTMENT FIRST ATTENDANCE

This indicates, when an attendance or contact is to take place as an APPOINTMENT, whether it is a first attendance APPOINTMENT or a follow-up attendance APPOINTMENT.

If the PATIENT does not attend the first APPOINTMENT, another first attendance APPOINTMENT should be made.

An APPOINTMENT FIRST ATTENDANCE may be the first in a series such as an Consultant Out-Patient Episode, or only APPOINTMENT which took place regardless of how many previous APPOINTMENTS were made which did not take place for whatever reason. All subsequent APPOINTMENTS in the series which take place should be recorded as follow-up.

Where one or more APPOINTMENT is recorded for a PATIENT but none has as yet taken place, the notional 'Appointment first attendance' will be the APPOINTMENT with the earliest APPOINTMENT DATE. This excludes any APPOINTMENTS which have been cancelled as indicated by a recorded APPOINTMENT CANCELLED DATE.

This item is not referenced in a data set in the NHS Data Model and Dictionary. It has been retained to ensure the modelling is consistent.