Read on below or click the relevant titles to quickly navigate:
- How it works
- Benefits
- Commissioner Testimonials
- Consultant Testimonials
- Referral Triage project examples
Following the latest RTT waiting times data released by NHS England and the recent BBC News article revealing that one in eight people are on hospital waiting lists across the country, with thousands who have been waiting more than two years, it is clear that NHS areas continue to face the challenge of tackling their elective restoration and recovery work.
Our Referral Triage service has been well received as temporary support for hospital trusts needing additional temporary capacity.
An ICB System Lead for Elective Recovery commented: “Consultant Connect delivered a service in the background that has assisted us to improve the delivery of our services and ultimately more timely care to our patients.”
Our switch-on/switch-off model means as your local capacities change, the service can be reduced or turned off completely with 72 hours notice:
How it works
Our Referral Triage service supports hospital trusts needing additional temporary capacity for referrals. The service uses the expertise of the NHS consultants from our National Consultant Network (NCN) and is available to work through backlogs in bulk or back-up local clinicians (for backlogs and/or new referrals as they come in). All specialists available are NHS consultants and act as ‘virtual’ consultants who are working as part of a local team and are briefed to follow local protocols and pathways.
Benefits
The triage work results in a clinically validated and prioritised waiting list that ensures that most urgent referrals are seen first at the right service and that those referrals that can be managed in primary care are returned to Primary Care with extensive Advice & Guidance.
Key benefits:
- Manages high volumes quickly
- 17 NHS specialties available
- Follows local pathways
- Results in many referrals being re-prioritised
- Identifies important upgrades
as well as downgrades - Directs referrals to the right service first time
- Communicates all results via e-RS
- Is charged on a per referral basis – no long-term commitments
- 100% outcome reporting
Commissioner Testimonials
NHS areas using our Referral triage service comment:
“Those patients that did need to be seen were triaged into urgent and routines, and into whether they needed to be seen face-to-face or virtually. We’ve managed to reduce the demand, but also managed to fast-track patients who are potentially acutely unwell into the hospital for urgent treatments.”
“Our work with Consultant Connect has been incredibly effective in driving more efficient patient pathways and ensuring the most effective use of our clinical resources. The operational team have always been very responsive and flexible to our needs, and all the clinicians who delivered the referral triage provided excellent input, in some cases going above and beyond the ask and offering suggestions as to how we could improve our patient pathways to reduce the time to diagnosis and treatment. We’re looking forward to continuing to work with Consultant Connect in the coming months to support our work to reduce the time our patients are waiting for their initial consultation or diagnosis.”
“As an ICB we have worked closely with Consultant Connect and our Provider Organisations for referral validation and triage. Consultant Connect are a responsive and professional organisation. They have gone out of their way to provide timely support and services to set this project up.
They always have been flexible to our needs working around our systems and processes to help deliver our projects. Their team of staff are friendly and knowledgeable and always engage to provide the best service possible.
They deliver a service in the background that has assisted us to improve the delivery of our services and ultimately more timely care to our patients.”
Consultant Testimonials
NCN Consultants triaging waiting lists comment:
“I’m pleased that this project has brought about a reduction in waiting times when NHS services across the country are under huge pressure. I hope that facilitating investigations in advance of clinic appointments in selected cases will result in further efficiency savings, by improving the new to follow up ratio and that this free clinic capacity can be directed towards patients who need more urgent clinical review. The standard of referrals from GPs has been high, as has the IT infrastructure, meaning decisions can often be made immediately, rather than requiring back and forth messages to obtain the necessary information.”
“The opportunities for the NHS are shorter waiting lists at the hospitals – what’s not to like about that! “
“A number of referrals were identified to be re-triaged into another department in the hospital, saving an unnecessary first outpatient appointment.”
“As a specialist in colorectal and general surgery, I think the referral triage project is an excellent idea. I was involved in the initial trial and I have seen referrals which clearly were inappropriate and caused delays in patient management.”
Referral Triage project examples
Below are examples and results from recent projects across different specialties:
Example 1: Referral Triage for Cardiology
Outcomes and impact of 1,000 Cardiology referrals triaged:
The data shows that 250 Cardiology referrals were sent back to GPs with Advice & Guidance and 29% (290) of the referrals were booked for diagnostics only. This represents a significant freeing up of outpatient capacity with over 50% of the referrals reviewed not requiring a first outpatient appointment. Although some patients may require an outpatient appointment after having diagnostics, this will be on a more informed basis with the additional information from the investigations being available to clinicians. As a result of this 7-week review of 1,000 Cardiology referrals, waiting times were reduced from 48 weeks to 41 weeks.
Read the Referral Triage in Norfolk case study.
Example 2: Referral Triage for Gynaecology
Outcomes and impact of two Gynaecology waiting list triage pilots:
Gynaecology (Menopause) waiting list triaged – Pilot Area 1:
- 64% of referrals are booked directly into a routine outpatient appointment
- 4% of referrals upgraded to a two-week-wait (2WW) pathway
- 32% are returned to GPs in primary care with advice
Gynaecology (non-Menopause) waiting list triaged – Pilot Area 2:
- 87% of referrals are booked directly into a routine outpatient appointment
- 1% of referrals upgraded to a two-week-wait (2WW) pathway
- 4% of referrals are upgraded to urgent and booked directly into an outpatient appointment
- 9% are returned to GPs in primary care with advice
Read the ‘Tackling gynaecology waiting lists’ blog article.
Example 3: Referral Triage for ENT
Outcomes and impact of ENT waiting list triage:
- 25% of ENT referrals were returned to clinicians in Primary Care with Advice & Guidance
- 6% of ENT referrals were marked as urgent and prioritised for a consultation, either with or without additional diagnostics
- 1% of ENT referrals were upgraded to a two-week wait (2WW) pathway
For the full breakdown of the outcomes of the triage work, read our article.
Example 4: Referral Triage for Urology
Outcomes and impact of Urology waiting list triage:
- 15% of urology referrals were returned to clinicians in Primary Care with Advice & Guidance
- 19% of urology referrals were marked as urgent and prioritised for a consultation, either with or without additional diagnostics
- 1% of urology referrals were upgraded to a two-week wait (2WW) pathway
For the full breakdown of the outcomes of the triage work, read our article.
Example 5: Referral Triage impact across 14 NHS specialties
As of April 2022, for over 20,000 referral cases across 14 specialties:
- 17% of referrals returned to GPs in primary care with advice
- 8% of referrals booked in for test only
- 46% of referrals booked into a routine outpatient appointment, without additional diagnostics being needed
- 15% of referrals booked into diagnostics and routine outpatient appointment is being arranged
- 2% of referrals downgraded to routine outpatient appointment
- 5% of referrals marked as urgent and prioritised for consultation without additional diagnostics being needed
- 5% of referrals marked as urgent and prioritised for diagnostics
- 2% of referrals upgraded to urgent and prioritised for consultation without aditional diagnostics being needed
- 1% of referrals upgraded to a two-week-wait (2WW) pathway
For the full breakdown of the outcomes of the triage work, read our article.
If you have any questions or would like more information, call us on 01865 261467 or email hello@consultantconnect.org.uk.
