No CREATE_APPOINTMENT action (from A029) after appointment cancelled (via A034)

e-Referral Service (e-RS) e-Referral Service FHIR API
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1

Hi, when an appointment has been cancelled via Update Appointment (A034), the CREATE_APPOINTMENT action isn’t returned by Available Actions for User (A029), so the user cannot book a replacement appointment. However they can do so in the ERS Portal. Is this a bug in the API?

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Hi Daniel,

Thanks for you query. This is actually expected functionality.

Once an appointment on the current shortlist entry has beeen cancelled, e-RS doesn’t allow a new appointment to be booked straight back onto that same shortlisted service via Available actions (A029)/ Book or Defer Appointment (A016). The referral needs to be re-shortlisted first before it becomes bookable again.

The reason it looks like you can rebook directly in the portal is that the “book a replacement” journey there actually performs a re-shortlist step behind the scenes as part of that single user action, it isnt booking onto the old, cancelled shortlist entry.

Therefore, to achieve the same result via api:

  1. Call Change shortlist (A031), reading the same service to the referral.
  2. Call Available Actions for user (A029) again , CREATE_APPOINTMENT will now be retuyrned for the newly shortlised service.
  3. Call book or defer appointment (A016) to create the replacement appointment.

Hope this helps.

George

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That makes sense. Thanks George.