An illustration of consumer document API sessions

A GP Connect Access Document consumer application would follow the typical API session described below to retrieve a patient’s documents.

Consumer session - querying and retrieving documents

The sequence diagram below illustrates which individual API calls are required by a consumer to both query for and retrieve a document from a GP practice in the simplest case. It describes interactions with the provider system at the GP practice, and does not include details of the prerequisite interactions with Spine services.

Step	Description
1a	Consumer makes a call to find patient providing the patient’s NHS number
1b	Provider finds patient record and returns the logical identifier of the patient record at this practice in their system.
2a	Consumer queries for a list of the patient’s documents
2b	Provider responds with a list of document metadata for the patient’s documents
2a	Consumer makes a request to retrieve a document using the location returned as part of the document metadata in step 2b
2b	Provider responds with the requested document

Consumer session - retrieving documents referenced from patient’s structured record

The sequence diagram below illustrates how a consumer could retrieve the patient’s structured record using Access Record Structured and then retrieve documents referenced from consultations or problems using the Access Document API.

Step	Description
1a	Consumer makes a call to retrieve the patient’s structured record providing the patient’s NHS number and parameters relating to the clinical information that should be returned
1b	Provider finds patient record and returns the patient’s structured record including document metadata.
2a	Consumer makes a request to retrieve a document using the location returned as part of the document metadata in step 1b
2b	Provider responds with the requested document