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BNSSG Referral Service

Checked: 31-07-2024 by Vicky Ryan Next Review: 30-07-2026

Overview

The BNSSG ICB Referral Service is a referral support service for Bristol and North Somerset and South Gloucestershire.

The Referral Service’s main purpose is to support patients and primary care to enable patients to receive the right care by the right person at the right time and place with minimum delays. The service outcomes include:

Supports patients in making a choice about their provider, receiving the right help to navigate the eRS (formally choose and book) system.
Supports primary care teams in giving easier access to up to date information on referral pathways for their patients. This includes clinical information and also choice support options. Can troubleshoot referral issues for practices and their patients. Information on referral guidelines and pathways can be found on Remedy
Supports collaboration between providers (secondary care, community and AQP) and primary care in producing guidelines and pathways of care across BNSSG.
Collection of referral information from across BNSSG to support efficient use of the existing resources across the ICS.

Referral advice and template

BNSSG Referral Service – Tel: 0117 900 2566

The BNSSG Referral Service is based at Floor 2, North Wing, 100 Temple Street in Bristol (however, the team is mainly working remotely) 5 days a week, Mon – Fri, 8:30am to 5:00pm.

Email us at BNSSG.Referral.Service@nhs.net

Referral Template

The Referral Service recommend the use of a standard ICB BNSSG Standard Referral Form Template (word version) which is embedded into practice EMIS systems (via Resource Publisher) and will prepopulate with information that is helpful for the triage team and for providers. This information can help improve the patient pathway and is particularly helpful for surgical specialties to help avoid the risk of patients having their treatment cancelled or delayed.

Further advice on pre-operation criteria can be found on the Pre-operative Assessment page.

Useful Guides

Service Guide - an Excel spreadsheet listing services by speciality with contact details and brief referral details.

BNSSG GP Practice Guidance - this operational guidance explains how the referral service works and supports practices.

Patient Information Leaflet

The Referral Service have produced a Patient Information leaflet which can be printed and given to patients which explains the referral process and what happens next.

Arabic Patient Information Leaflet

Bengali Patient Information Leaflet

Polish Patient Information Leaflet

Punjabi Patient Information Leaflet

Romanian Patient Information Leaflet

Somali Patient Information Leaflet

Urdu Patient Information Leaflet

BNSSG Patient Transport Leaflet

The patient transport service (PTS) provides planned, non-emergency transport for eligible Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire patients to and from NHS hospitals and clinics, including outpatient departments, inter-hospital transfers, renal dialysis, oncology centres and your home.

It is only available for eligible patients for medical reasons. See the ICB website for patient information on Patient Transport Services.

BNSSG Policy Development Team

The BNSSG Policy Development team are responsible for any of the funding policy amendments or the composing of new funding policies. The referral service regularly receive feedback from GP practices about funding policies, or come across problems with funding policies when applying them. The policy team are happy for issues to be sent directly to their email address:

bnssg.commissioning.policy@nhs.net

Referral Service - feedback

We like to share some of the feedback we get from practices about our service:

“Hana, I am not sure how medical secretaries would be able to do their jobs if it weren’t for you and your team. The whole referral process now seems to be becoming more and more complicated and difficult to navigate. We are especially thankful to you and your team here at xxxxxx, so please may your support and meetings continue for as long as possible in this ever changing NHS.” - January 2024

NHS App and e-RS

NHS App and Booking of Appointments via e-RS - Updated April 2024

The Referral Service has identified an issue which has come to light after a recent NHS Digital update to e-RS and the NHS App. If a patient has the NHS App and is referred on e-RS they will receive a notification within 15 minutes of the referral being uploaded asking them to book their appointment and then subsequent reminder notifications until action has been taken.

This means that as soon as you create a referral and send it through to the Referral Service, a notification will be sent to the patient advising them to contact the service to make an appointment. The Referral Service have therefore set up a message on their phone line to advise that patients should wait until they have been notified by letter of their booking options.

If possible it would be helpful if patients were made aware of this when an e-RS referral is made and ask them to wait 2 weeks before contacting the Referral Service with referral queries. This is not applicable to time sensitive referrals such as 2WW and directly referred 'Hot' clinics.

Some practices have taken action and adjusted their patient messaging but the Referral Service is aware that it is not always possible to implement. We would encourage you to share this with secretaries and referring clinicians so that they are aware andcan respond to patient queries.

The Referral Service is exploring other options with NHS Digital to try to make this process clearer for patients and practices and updates will be posted on this page.

On Hold period for incomplete referrals

The Referral Service and Providers kindly request that all relevant information and attachments are included in a referral. This supports the triage process to make it accurate and efficient and helps ensure that the patient is given appropriate choices of provider*.

Where a referral is incomplete or needing further attachments, the Referral Service will instruct the practice medical secretary and hold a referral for up to 48 hours awaiting further details or documents to be uploaded.

The 48 hour on hold window is designed to give medical secretaries time to attach things that may already available on their clinical system. It is usually a letter that has been missing or some results or evidence from previous consultations that can easily be rectified. We are aware that it may not be possible to provide this information if a referrer has to do further investigations, speak to the patient or collect information to allow completion of a PA form, etc. In these cases it may therefore be necessary to return a referral so that this information can be provided. The GP/their medical secretary is advised to create a new referral when all the information is available for the referral to proceed.

Unfortunately we cannot extend the 48 hour window for the following reasons:

Once a referral is created and sent to our service, the Referral to Treatment (RTT) clock starts. If we held the referral open for more than two days, this would have a negative affect on patient’s wait and acute trusts RTT deadline compliance.
The Referral Service does not have the resources to manage an 'on hold' list and this could also lead to confusion and potential risk if a referral sits with the referral service waiting information which may take some time to be submitted.

To avoid referrals being returned it is therefore important to include all relevant information and attachments with a referral. We appreciate your understanding in this matter.

*Please note that not all providers have access to other platforms such as connecting care, ICE or EMIS and even if they do it can take time for the RS or provider to find this information. It is therefore important that all relevant information should be attached to a referral when submitting it on eRS. Failure to do so can lead to delays and inappropriate provider choices.