Trust Policy and Procedure Document Ref. No: PP(14) 312

Policy Name

For use in: / All areas of the Trust
For use by: / All Trust staff
For use for:
Document owner: / Dr Mohanraj Suresh
Status: / Approved

Purpose of this document

To replace the paper based specialist to specialist referral to a convenient and secured e-referral system using Epro.

Content Page

Introduction 2

Main content

  1. Scope of policy `2
  1. Objectives 2
  1. Standards of E-referrals 2
  1. Roles and responsibilities 2
  1. Procedure and Procedural flow chart 3 -5
  1. Training and education 5
  1. Monitoring5

Main Content of Policy

Introduction:

It has been recognised that the current paper based specialist to specialist (White Card) referral system is not suitable for clinical practice. It has been agreed by Trust Executive Group to use a robust electronic referral system based onEpro (E-referrals) to attain the following objectives.

Objectives

  1. To manage specialist referrals for inpatients efficiently and easily.
  2. To capture referral clinical data electronically
  3. To ensure communication of clinical information is secure and not lost in post.
  4. To facilitate timely response to referrals and avoiding unnecessary hold up and delay inpatient’s specialist review and discharge.
  5. To enable referring team to conveniently monitor theprogress of referrals through Epro. i.e accepted or redirected or completed.
  6. To enable secretarial staff to assign referrals to appropriate specialists within their departments and monitor completion of these referrals in a timely fashion.
  7. When clinically inappropriate referrals can be redirected to appropriate department / specialist or advice referring team by the receiving consultant.
  8. To generate and monitor daily report on any delay to completion ofE-referrals.

Scope of Policy:

Applies to all inpatients requiring specialist opinion. This policy will not apply to any emergency calls such as acute myocardial infarction, acute Stroke call, and emergency orthopaedic and surgical referrals. These emergency referrals will continue to adopt the current method of calling relevant teams through the on call bleeps for advice and review. It is well recognised during acute take, there will be clinical situations when referrals can be requested through the E-referral system as urgent or routine.

Standards for E-Referrals:

  1. All specialist referral should be decided by consultant in charge of the patient’s care and urgency should be prioritised.
  2. All urgent referrals should be followed by a verbal discussion by the referring team.
  3. Doctors completing the referrals shall ensure that the details on the request are fully completed and shall include location of patient, referring clinician contact details and referral to department. Thesecretarial staff of the receiving department will allocate to an available clinician from their team.
  4. All outpatient requests will not use this process and will be an automatic rejection by the receiving team.
  5. Secretarial staffs in each department will assign the referrals to specific consultant within the next working day of receiving the referral.
  6. After reviewing the request, Consultant should complete and save the referral request with necessary information on the response box. The same applies when a request is rejected or redirected to another department.
  7. Response time to review: All urgent requests should be completed within the next working day of a request been made. All non-urgent requests should be dealt with in next two working days. Further agreement regarding response for visiting consultants should be agreed by the medical director. E.g. vascular / renal teams

Roles and responsibilities:

The overall accountability for effective management and risk associated with specialist to specialist referrals lies with the Executive Medical director. At an operational level, Executive operational director, IM&T and clinical directors have responsibility for governance, risk management and training.Consultants, junior doctors, Managers for secretarial staff, secretaries and personal assistantsall have a key role in ensuring the standards for referrals are maintained.

Procedure:

All standards and procedures in this policy must be adhered to ensure that risks associated with E-referrals are minimised and managed effectively. This will also aid patients to receive specialists input in a timely fashion.

List of departments accepting Epro e-referrals:

Procedural Flow Chart

Continued from page 3.

Source: Dr M Suresh Status: Approved Page 1 of 5

Issue date:3rd April 2014 Review Date: 2nd April 2016 Document Ref: PP(14)312

Training and education

IM&T is responsible for training the clinical users. In addition manager for secretarial staff will ensure all departments have a routine scheme agreed with clinicians to receive, assign and respond to referrals.

Training material link.

Author(s): / Dr M Suresh
Other contributors: / Dermot O’Riordan, Ashley Lewis, Liam McLaughlin,, Jackie Lockwood and Jackie Brennan
Approvals and endorsements: / Operational Steering Group
Consultation:
Issue no: / 02
File name: / E-referrals policy
Supercedes: / Issue 01
Equality Assessed
Implementation / On 3rd April 2014
Updated date: / On 15th May 2014
Monitoring: (give brief details how this will be done) / See procedure material in the main content
Other relevant policies/documents & references:
Additional Information:

Source: Dr M Suresh Status: Approved Page 1 of 5

Issue date:3rd April 2014 Review Date: 2nd April 2016 Document Ref: PP(14)312