Wales begins electronic referrals trial

Two GP practices in Wales are to take part in a trial of an electronic referral system which will be extended across the country if it proves successful.

The system, based on the Scottish Clinical information (SCI) Gateway which has been used in Scotland for several years, enables practices to send electronic messages securely to hospitals.

Informing Healthcare, the national IT programme for Wales, told EHI Primary Care that the system will not enable a GP to book an outpatient slot directly with a consultant.

A spokesperson added: “NHS Wales has not adopted the Choose and Book system for first outpatient appointments.”

The two practices, from Cardiff and Vale health community, will take part in a proof-of-concept trial from next month until the end of the year to test the benefits of the system for patients and staff before wider roll-out.

Informing Healthcare says the system can handle messages from ‘any to any’ healthcare setting including other GPs or professions allied to medicine and from consultant to consultant or from organisation to organisation.

However the forthcoming trial will be limited to clinical messages from GPs to the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff. The electronic referral will be sent to the hospital’s medical records department where it will be allocated to the appropriate consultant’s administrator for an out-patient appointment. The second stage of the pilot will explore the use of the system with a referral management centre based within the local health board.

Following completion of the trial the plan is to extend the system to a complete health community for further evaluation before e-referrals are made available nationally across Wales. GPs in Wales referred 650,000 patients for specialist care in 2006. A national reference group is being set up to ensure the project meets the needs of clinicians and patients.

A spokesperson for Informing Healthcare added: “The electronic transfer of referrals is intended to streamline the current process by replacing paper with an electronic transfer. The e-referral also includes a proforma to ensure information from the GP is supplied in a consistent format. The whole process becomes simpler and more efficient as it avoids slower post or courier services and reduces the risk of referrals getting lost.”

Links

Scottish Clinical Information Gateway