AHPs embrace Choose and Book

Yvonne Pettigrew, CfH’s national clinical lead for allied health professionals

Use of Choose and Book for referrals to allied health professionals has risen by more than 500% in the last year, NHS Connecting for Health has announced.

Referrals via Choose and Book increased from 1,000 a month a year ago to more than 5,000 a month in February 2009, according to the IT agency.

Yvonne Pettigrew, CfH’s national clinical lead for allied health professionals, said physiotherapy, podiatry and dietetics currently had their own listings on Choose and Book and occupational therapy and speech therapy would be added in the summer.

She told EHI Primary Care: “The level of interest has so far been shaped around those first three services that are listed already; but other allied health professionals are keen to use the system to enable GPs to know that their services are there.”

CfH said Choose and Book referrals could be made directly if the AHP service had a compliant patient administration system. Mostly, however, the referral was an indirect booking, with the patient being given a unique booking reference number by their GP and then making a booking later.

Pettigrew said that until now, AHP services such as speech therapy had sometimes listed their clinics under a consultant-led service, such as ear, nose and throat, if they offered services that were closely linked.

She added: “With the addition of speech language therapists and occupational therapists from June 2009 we are well on course to increase to over 40,000 referrals a year.”

She said the introduction of searching by SNOMED clinical terminology, also due in June, would make it much easier for GPs to find relevant AHP services for patients.

She added: “The introduction of searching using clinical terminology is one of the most exciting aspects for AHPs because it will bring up all the services that patients’ need instead of having to look up a specific service.”

Pettigrew said AHPs were particularly interested to see how Choose and Book could be developed to enable patients to s elf-refer to AHPs via the e-booking system.

She said DH policy changes in October 2008 meant self–referral would become increasingly available to patients and it was important that Choose and Book could support this.

As a starting point, NHS Choices is to include more information about services available via Choose and Book which could help patients wishing to self-refer.

Pettigrew added: “Overall, I am excited by the interest AHPs have shown in Choose and Book and the level of engagement they want to have in the development of IT systems.

"It is going to be good for the allied health professions but, ultimately, it’s the patient who will feel the benefit, by having access to the right care, in their local health community, when they need it.”