Effective management of e-RS worklists 

The NHS e-Referral Service (e-RS) provides worklists to support healthcare providers in managing referrals and requests for specialist advice.

Referrals remain on relevant provider worklists until an appropriate action is recorded, an appointment date passes in specific circumstances, or 180 days pass with no action since the referral last entered the worklist. Where 180 days pass without action, the referral is automatically removed from the worklist.

If a referral or advice unique booking reference number (UBRN) drops off an e-RS worklist before it has been appropriately managed, there is a risk that the UBRN may no longer be visible to teams using that worklist to manage patients.

To ensure safe and effective management of e-RS worklists, providers must:

1. Manage e-RS worklists regularly and efficiently, ensuring UBRNs are clinically triaged and moved into appropriate local waiting-list or patient-tracking processes where required. 
2. Routinely review the weekly EBSX12 worklist drop-off extract. The EBSX12 extract, available every Monday via the e-RS Information Analyst role, identifies UBRNs from the previous reporting week that have dropped off provider worklists after 180 days with no activity since entering the worklist. 
3. Validate referrals identified through the EBSX12 extract to determine whether further action is required to manage the patient's referral or care. 
4. Define clear roles and responsibilities for reviewing worklists and managing referrals which have dropped off
5. Integrate their EPR with e-RS APIs. The Medium-term planning framework states that providers should integrate their EPR with e-RS APIs for managing referrals and advice & guidance requests. e-RS integration supports a unified clinical record within the EPR to ensure that referral and specialist advice requests remain visible and can be managed through local clinical workflows.
6. Consider the 180-day function within local clinical risk management arrangements for e-RS, including the requirements of the DCB0160 digital clinical safety standard and maintenance of an appropriate local hazard log.