An appointment is defined as 'new' if a patient is seeing a clinician for the first time at this health service, for initial assessment or treatment.  

New appointments are different to 'first' appointments in two ways:  

1. For an appointment to be a 'first', the patient must be seeing a clinician for the first time within the specialty for which they were referred. A patient can only have one 'first' appointment, but may have more than one 'new' appointment if they are seeing clinicians from other specialties as well.   
    
2. The count of 'new' appointments includes only appointments that the patient attended. A 'first' appointment can be a booked appointment to which the patient failed to attend.