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NHS e-Referral Service (e-RS) common issues in the Path to Live environments

How to deal with common issues experienced by users of the Path to Live environments when using e-RS. 

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Common roles in e-RS and how they’re used

A table showing the various activity codes associated with e-RS business functions. 

e-RS role name RBAC activity code CIS activity name Common use
Service definer B1107 Maintain service configurations and workgroups Belongs at a secondary care Trust. Creates and amends services, manages slots, runs manual slot polls and links the services to the relevant Patient Administration System (PAS) if required
Service provider admin  B1120 Manage inbound appointments Belongs at a secondary care Trust. Usually an administrator who manages the appointments but has no access to the clinical data
Service provider clinician B1110 Manage inbound referrals Belongs at a secondary care Trust. Usually a consultant. Deals with inbound referrals and treating the patients. They accept, reject or onward refer
Service provider clinician admin B1115 Proxy manage inbound referrals Belongs at a secondary care Trust. A consultant’s assistant who will manage the inbound referrals on behalf of the consultant. Has the same access but must be linked to a service provider clinician
Commissioner B1106 Maintain commissioned services Secondary care services can be booked into by anyone. Primary care services can only be booked into by configured GP practices. The commissioner will manage the ‘configured GP practices’ for primary care services’
Referring admin B1103 Manage outbound appointments Belongs at a primary care facility. Usually an administrator who manages the appointments but has no access to the clinical data
Referring clinician B1101 Manage outbound referrals Belongs at a primary care facility. Usually a GP. They will search for services and create the referral, they will also send the referral letter and other clinical details
Referring clinician admin B1102 Proxy manage outbound referrals Belongs at a primary care facility. A GP’s assistant who will manage the outbound referrals on behalf of the GP. Has the same access but must be linked to a referring clinician

'Service provider’ is not limited to consultant roles and will also cover any medical professional that runs a clinic into which patients can be booked.

Similarly, ‘referrer’ is not limited to GP roles and will also cover any medical professional that needs to refer patients to secondary services, for example opticians, pharmacists or dentists.

Service definer

The service definer role belongs at the provider organisation, for example a Trust. Their purpose is to define the services offered at each of the secondary care locations by inputting details about the service, for example medical conditions treated, the ages treated and gender. They also configure the service to the correct Patient Administration System (PAS).

Defining a service generates a unique service ID. When the service is set up, this ID is entered into the PAS and allows both systems to identify the service when messaging.

Service provider clinician

The service provider clinician, for example consultant, works at the secondary care location. They are responsible for dealing with the inbound referrals and treating the patients that attend the service.

In terms of e-RS the they will deal with the inbound referrals, for example accepting, rejecting and onward referring.

Referring clinician

The Referring Clinician (e.g. GP), works at a Primary Care Location (e.g. GP Practice). They search for services and refer patients to them.

Service commissioner

If a service is defined as being on the secondary care menu, it is available nationally to all referring clinicians who enter the appropriate search terms into e-RS.

If not defined in this way then it is called a primary care service and only available to those referring clinicians who work at a GP practice that has had the service commissioned by their clinical commissioning group (CCG).

The service commissioner works at the CCG and commissions services of this kind.

To see such a service, the referring clinician must be at a GP practice that belongs to the CCG at which the commissioner works.

Connecting to e-RS

Connection details are provided on the Spine technical information: Warranted Environment Specification (WES) page. 

Valid e-RS roles for each organisation type

Valid roles by organisation type

Although e-RS 'B codes' (activities) and roles can be added to any user at any organisation, they will not work as intended within e-RS unless they are linked with a relevant organisational type.

Shown by 

Code e-RS Name (SDS/RBAC/NHS Spine Portal Name)

GP or dental practice

B1101: referring clinician (initiate patient referral)

B1102: referring clinician admin (proxy initiate patient referral)

B1103: referring admin (manage appointment bookings)

B1130: information analyst (perform reports)

If the practice also provides services, the following roles may also be valid:

B1107: service definer (manage service definition)

B1110: service provider clinician (manage service referrals and bookings)

B1120: service provider admin (manage service bookings)

B1140: booking manager (manage indirect bookings)

Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) 

B1106: commissioner (manage service commissioning)

B1107: service definer (manage service definition)

B1108: SS booking guidance definer (Manage Service Selection Booking Guidance)

B1110 Service Provider Clinician (manage service referrals and bookings)

B1120: service provider admin (manage service bookings)

B1130: information analyst (perform reports)

B1140 booking manager (manage indirect bookings)

Any service provider organisation 

Examples include acute Trust, mental health Trust or primary care Trust

B1107: service definer (manage service definition)

B1110: service provider clinician (manage service referrals and bookings)

B1120: service provider admin (manage service bookings)

B1130: information analyst (perform reports)

B1140: booking manager (manage indirect bookings)

B1115: proxy manage service referrals and bookings

BMS call centre

B1104: BMS HCP Proxy (perform clinical booking management service)

B1105: BMS Admin (perform booking management service)

B1130: information analyst (perform reports)

Regions 

B1130: information analyst (perform reports)

Finding a Unique Booking Reference Number (UBRN) when logged in as another organisation

A referral is only visible to the following groups:

  • a referring clinician (or admin) at the organisation code the referral was made from - only an employee at the GP Practice that originally made the referral
  • a provider clinician (or admin) at the organisation code that the referral was made to - only an employee at the Trust that is providing the service that the referral was made to
  • a booking manager or clinical booking manager

If you need to find a referral but don't know where it was made to or from, log into e-RS as one of the booking manager roles and use the UBRN or NHS number search options to find the referral.

Slot polls and service details

Overview of slot polls

Appointment slots are times available in a service for patients to attend. These are created in the Patient Administration System (PAS) and e-RS needs to know what they are. To find out, the PAS is asked to send in the available slots via a slot poll message for each service configured in e-RS.

A scheduled poll is run every day for each service.

  • slot poll request message is sent from e-RS to the PAS at the predetermined time (usually nightly) containing the Service ID
  • the PAS responds with an acknowledgement message - this confirms that the request has been received
  • he PAS then carries out its processing to construct a slot poll response with all the slots for that service and sends it (it also contains the Service ID so e-RS knows which service the response is for)
  • e-RS allows bookings into the specified slots

How to perform a manual slot poll 

Sometimes it's necessary to amend or remove slots in response to a change in circumstances. Slot polls can be initiated manually.

To complete a manual slot poll:

  1. log in as a service definer at the service provider organisation
  2. locate the service in 'manage service' and click to view the configuration
  3. scroll down and expand the 'slot management' section and select 'poll now' 

Note: clicking the 'poll now' button before the success/failure has returned on the first request will result in an error stating that there is a slot poll already in progress.

Setting up work groups

  1. As a service definer, select ‘workgroups’ and then ‘add new workgroup’.
  2. Enter a name for the workgroup and select 'add users’.
  3. Search for users by surname, entering the surname in the relevant field and then selecting ‘Search’ - matching users are displayed in the list (only users with the relevant e-RS provider roles at the selected organisation code will be displayed).
  4. Add the required users by ticking the associated tick-box and then select ‘add’.
  5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 for each required user (removing business function filters as required) - when the list is complete, select ‘done’.
  6. Review the list of users, then ‘Save’ - the workgroup will now be available to associate to services.

Full instructions and screenshots can be found in the Guide to Creating Services in Path to Live e-RS.

Adding users to e-RS worklists

If you're having difficulty adding users to a worklist, make sure the users have the correct roles at the correct organisation code.

Only those with the following roles in valid organisations need to use/can be added to workgroups:

  • service provider clinician
  • service provider admin
  • booking manager

Last edited: 14 January 2022 9:42 am