Summary: How referrals should be processed by the Clinical Admin team
Who’s it for: Clinical Admin
Introduction
A referral is a request by a clinician to another specialist to further assess or treat a patient. The majority of referrals are processed by Clinical Admin. Most referrals are send by e-RS or email, but some may be requested over the phone or by the patient self-referring.
Advice and guidance is not a referral as such, but can become a referral in certain circumstances; it is a communication between clinician and other clinical professionals (mostly hospitals) via e-RS.
Always double check that you’re sending the referral for the correct patient!
Procedure
1️⃣ Requesting a referral
Clinicians
See Requesting Referrals for information about how clinicians should request Clinical Admin to send a referral.
2️⃣ Triaging requests
Clinical Admin
One member of the Clinical Admin team at each site is responsible for triaging tasks and prioritising 2WW and urgent referrals.
3️⃣ Making the referral
- If necessary, find the service in the Services Database to see how to refer (i.e. e-RS or email) and any forms or other information that should be included in the referral.
- Fill in the referral form with as much information as possible.
- If you need more information, contact the requesting GP.
- If a locum requested the referral, contact them if they are available, otherwise seek help from a regular GP on-site.
- Send completed referral to the requesting GP to review and sign.
- If a locum requested the referral, contact them if they are available, otherwise ask a regular GP on-site to review and sign.
- Once completed, send reviewed and signed referral form to relevant service.
- Once you’ve had confirmation that the referral has been received and processed by the service, you can complete the task.
- NB. If any further action is needed, but it’s not for you to do, make sure to forward the task to the appropriate person.
A detailed step-by-step guide on how to make a referral or advice and guidance request in e-RS can be found on our e-Referral Service (e-RS) page.
When sending a referral via email, please request a response from the service to acknowledge that they have received and are processing the referral.
All activities related to a referral must be recorded in the patient's EMIS records as a consultation.
Exceptions
- All 2WW lower GI (LGIT) referrals must have a FIT result attached that is no more than 21 days old at the time of the referral being made.
- If a GP has requested a FIT test please wait for the result before processing the referral. If there is a delay of more than 1 week in receiving the result, notify the Clinical Admin Lead.
- Opticians letters requesting straight-forward ophthalmology referrals will only be seen by CA (see Scanning & Triaging). These referrals do not need to be reviewed and signed by a GP — to complete the referral, use name of Lead GP for your site or Dr Sarah Hawxwell. Once referral is complete, send a task to named GP to notify them.
- See our Internal MSK Service page to see how to make an internal referral (via cross-organisational booking) to Penrose Health’s MSK GP (Dr. Matthew Grant).
- Paediatrics referrals (that don’t necessarily need to be done by hospital) can be booked with GP Enhanced Access (GPEA) (via cross-organisational booking) for Penrose Surgery and Knights Hill only.
- Penrose → Organisation: ‘North Quay Solutions (North Hub)’ → Slot type: ‘Paediatric referral triage Walworth’
- Knight’s Hill → Organisation: ‘Deerbrook, Herne Hill, Northwood & Brixton hill’ → Slot type: ‘All slot types’ → Book next available slot under Dr Michael Wacks.
4️⃣ Following-up the referral
- e-RS → See our e-Referral Service (e-RS) page for more information about how to manage referrals with outstanding actions in e-RS (i.e. rejected referrals, responses to advice and guidance requests, cancelled referrals, DNAs, and referrals awaiting booking).
- Email → We sometimes receive bounce back or response emails that a referral has been rejected, commonly:
- the referral should be sent via e-RS instead of email
- the referral should have been sent to a different email address / department
- the information sent to the service was incomplete
Keep an eye on emails and eRS worklists for any issues. If a referral is rejected for any reason, make the necessary changes and re-refer.
Check e-RS Worklists and emails daily to ensure referrals are being processed and if any follow-up action needed. If a locum requested the referral, contact them if they are available, otherwise ask a regular GP on-site to review A&G responses, Referral rejections or incomplete information.
If you need to get in touch with a service, their contact info can be found in the relevant service’s page in the Services Database.
If you have any questions, ask your colleagues on-site or in the Clinical Admin channel on Teams, or contact the Clinical Admin Lead
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