Document library - NHS e-Referral Service

Download guidance and implementation documents for the NHS e-Referral Service.

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Accessibility statement for Manage Your Referral (NHS e-Referral Service)

This accessibility statement applies to the Manage Your Referral website, the patient-facing application of the NHS e-Referral Service, run by NHS England

Accessible Information Standard - in the NHS e-Referral Service

Read about how to meet the information or communication needs of patients' through the NHS e-Referral Service (e-RS)

Acronym and terms glossary for the NHS e-Referral Service (e-RS)

Advice and Guidance letter from NHS England and Improvement and NHSX

Advice and guidance toolkit for the NHS e-Referral Service (e-RS)

Advice and guidance allows a clinician to seek advice from another, providing digital communication between two clinicians: the “requesting” clinician and the provider of a service, the “responding” clinician. The toolkit provides support for all advice and guidance users.

Advice and guidance user support information for the NHS e-Referral Service

Advice and guidance user support information for the NHS e-Referral Service.

Alerts - NHS e-Referral Service

Find out about NHS e-Referral Service system alerts.

Application Programming Interface (API) - NHS e-Referral Service

Find out more about our API and how to connect systems to the e-Referral Service.

Appointment slot issue data extract - NHS e-Referral Service

A guide to using NHS e-Referral Service (e-RS) data extracts to identify appointment slot issues (ASI) of more than 180 days old that required acting upon.

Appointment slot issues within the NHS e-Referral Service (managing and minimising)

This guidance explains what NHS e-Referral Service appointment slot issues are, the best practice for managing them, and strategies for avoiding them in future.

Archived referrals - NHS e-Referral Service

Guidance on why electronic referrals are archived, the benefits of archiving and how to access archive referrals.

Attachments - converting files to formats supported by the NHS e-Referral Service (e-RS)

The information on this page provides instructions on how to save unsupported files to different formats to allow them to be uploaded into the NHS e-Referral Service (e-RS).

Benefits - realising the NHS e-Referral Service benefits

Best practice guidance - NHS e-Referral Service

Generic guidelines for organisations providing services to NHS patients and their responsibilities in the NHS e-Referral services (e-RS).

Best practice guidelines for Commissioners - NHS e-Referral Service

Generic guidelines for commissioners and their responsibilities in the NHS e-Referral services (e-RS)

Best practice guidelines for referrers - NHS e-Referral Service

Generic guidelines for referrers and their responsibilities in the NHS e-Referral Services (e-RS)

Best practice guidelines for service providers - NHS e-Referral Service

Generic guidelines for service providers and their responsibilities in the NHS e-Referral services (e-RS)

Breast (symptomatic) referrals - NHS e-Referral Service

Since January 2010 both suspected cancer referrals (traditional two week wait referrals) and other breast referrals based on exhibited symptoms (where cancer is not initially suspected) have needed to be seen within two weeks.

Bulk service update – NHS e-Referral Service

The bulk service update allows NHS e-RS users with a service definer role to update multiple directly bookable services with amended or replacement patient administration systems reference information.

Business continuity guidance - NHS e-Referral Service

Read our guidance on system availability and business continuity, including background and purpose, maintaining access to e-RS local infrastructure, responding to loss of access to e-RS and invoking business continuity arrangements.

Business roles - NHS e-Referral Service

This guidance contains a list of all of the available Registration Authority codes as well as the recommended roles for each professional user.

Capacity alerts guidance on the NHS e-Referral Service

This guidance aims to help those responsible in the NHS England regional teams understand what will be needed both within a local health economy and within the e-RS system itself to enable the capacity alerts functionality to be used effectively.

Clinical assessment services (CAS) and the NHS e-Referral Service

A clinical assessment service (CAS) is an intermediate service that allows for a greater level of clinical expertise in assessing a patient than would normally be expected of a referring clinician (such as a GP).

Clinical assessment services (management) and the NHS e-Referral Service

Guidance to help service providers in managing clinical assessment service referrals in the NHS e-Referral Service.

Clinical responsibility when delegating roles - NHS e-Referral Service

The clinician remains responsible for the clinical consequences whenever they delegate responsibility for referring, accepting, redirecting or rejecting NHS e-referrals to a non-clinician.

Commissioning in the NHS e-Referral Service

This guidance provides an overview of the commissioning functions within the eRS service.

Configuration check page and troubleshoot problems – NHS e-Referral Service

Guidance for interpreting information provided by the NHS e-Referral Service (e-RS) configuration check page and how to troubleshoot any problems.

Deceased patient referral management - NHS e-Referral Service

This guidance provides an overview of how deceased patients with open electronic referrals should be managed within the NHS e-Referral Service.

Diagnostic services

How the NHS e-Referral Service (e-RS) supports referrals for diagnostic tests and the principles of setting up diagnostic service

Directory of Services (creating and maintaining services) on the NHS e-Referral Service

Guidance to support creating and maintaining services on the Directory of Services (DoS).

Dummy appointments in the NHS e-Referral Service (e-RS)

Review the information on this page to understand the issues and recommended options for 'dummy' appointments.

Extracts (translating) in NHS e-Referral Service

This guidance shows how to decode information from an extract in the NHS e-Referral service to make the information more meaningful.

Incomplete Referrals (UBRNs) on the NHS e-Referral Service

We have provided an overview on referrals (UBRNs) which have been created from an integrated GP system and not processed fully. The information in this guide will help referrers in retrieving and resolving incomplete referrals.

Independent sector provider guidance

This guidance will support Independent Sector Providers (ISPs) in understanding how to make their services available for referral and booking through the NHS e-Referral Service (e-RS).

Language options for e-RS reminder letters

The NHS e-Referral Service Telephone Appointment Line (TAL) currently sends out reminder letters to patients who have not booked a hospital appointment following a referral by a clinician, or if appointments are cancelled and not rebooked.

Logging into the NHS e-Referral Service

This page provides instructions on how to access the NHS e-Referral Service (e-RS).

Manage your referral video

e-RS allows patients to book their own appointments through an application called Manage your referral. This can be accessed by computer, phone or tablet. This video shows the application as well as the benefits of using this for both patients and professionals.

Managing displaced appointments in the NHS e-Referral Service

This guidance explains what displaced appointments are in the NHS e-Referral Service and how they can be appropriately managed by service providers.

Medical Examiner System - how the NHS e-Referral Service offers support

Mental health best practice guidelines and the NHS e-Referral Service

This guidance aims to demonstrate the benefits of using an electronic referral and booking tool for mental health services and explain how the system should be used in day-to-day clinical practice.

Mergers and migrations of GP surgeries within the NHS e-Referral Service

The information below provides the process for handling mergers and migrations of GP surgeries within the NHS e-Referral Service (e-RS).

Moving to directly bookable service - NHS e-Referral Service

Although the NHS e-Referral Service (e-RS) supports indirectly bookable services (IBS) it is recommended that service providers who have a compliant patient administration system (PAS) move to directly bookable services (DBS).

Named clinician guidance – NHS e-Referral Service

This guidance will help secondary care providers set up slots for specific clinicians’ teams so that referrals can be directed to them and managed appropriately

NHS App integration with the NHS e-Referral Service

Information for service providers and referrers on how the NHS App and the NHS e-Referral Service supports digital users with better access to their referral information

Pathway start - NHS e-Referral Service

Changes made to the date value in the NHS e-Referral Service (e-RS) to support accurate capture of the Referral To Treatment (RTT) clock start.

Patient administration system migrations - NHS e-Referral Service

Guidance for service provider organisations on how to amend or replace a patient administration system (PAS).

Patient booking window/same day appointments

Supporting service providers to manage different priority appointments.

Patient survey privacy statement - NHS e-Referral Service

This privacy statement is for patients taking part in research for the NHS e-Referral Service.

Primary care networks and the NHS e-Referral Service

This page explains how primary care networks (PCNs) work with the NHS e-Referral Service (e-RS) and the associated referrer responsibilities.

Privacy policy - NHS e-Referral Service

This privacy statement covers the NHS e-Referral Service professional application and the Manage Your Referral patient application.

Processing Did Not Attend referrals

This guidance shows how you process Did Not Attend (DNA) referrals using the NHS e-Referral Service.

Professional survey privacy statement - NHS e-Referral Service

This is a privacy statement for the NHS e-Referral Service user survey for use by professionals that have used the NHS e-Referral Service professional web application for managing patient referrals.

Provider organisations - support materials for using the NHS e-Referral Service (e-RS)

Support materials for providing organisations using the NHS e-Referral Service (e-RS).

Providers of directly bookable services

This guidance shows you how to review accept or reject a referral created in the NHS e-Referral service (e-RS).

Providers of indirectly bookable services

This guidance describes how indirectly bookable services (IBS) can book and manage referrals online using the NHS e-Referral service (e-RS).

Referral Assessment Services - interpreting data in the NHS e-Referral Service

Find out how to interpret Referral Assessment Service (RAS) data in the NHS e-Referral Service (e-RS)

Referral Assessment Services - NHS e-Referral Service

This page details functionality which provides the ability to triage referrals before booking an appointment for patients using the NHS e-Referral Service (e-RS). This supports complex clinical pathways and helps to reduce demand to elective care services.