The BNSSG ICB Referral Service is a referral support service for Bristol and North Somerset and South Gloucestershire. It was formed following the merger of the Bristol CCG Referral Service and North Somerset CCG Referral Service following a review of national evidence about the effectiveness of referral services.
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:
The BNSSG Referral Service is based at 360 Bristol - Three Six Zero, Marlborough 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
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.
Service Guide (link to new location) - please be advised that the Service Guide now has its own page on Remedy to simplify the process of accessing it.
BNSSG GP Practice Guidance - this operational guidance explains how the referral service works and supports practices.
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
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 patient leaflet for details.
BNSSG Patient Transport Leaflet
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
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