Automated appointment letters

e-Referral Service (e-RS)
1

We run a GPWSI clinic at our practice, The Grove Medical Group, Gosforth, Newcastle, NE3 1NU.

There is an automated letter that gets sent out to patients when practices refer them to us, and this letter asks the patient to ring the practice on a certain number, this however is incorrect and they do not need to ring us, we will get in touch with them, it causes a high amount of calls into the practice and often leaves patients frustrated they the letter asks them to ring us when they do not need to.

We have tried to get this changed before but have never been able to find the right person to help.

Please advise?

Thanks

Daniel Mckeswick

2

Hi @daniel.mckeswick - Thanks for your query and welcome to the developer community.

Can I just confirm this is related to a system using our APIs which is sending these letters?

A copy of the letter (without PID) would be useful to clarify the situation.

Thanks,
Zubeir.

3

Hi @zubeir.tai

Yes i can confirm that is the case.

Thanks for the response, I will try to get a hold of one of the letters from a patient and remove the patient details and send over.

Thanks

4

Thanks @daniel.mckeswick

I suspect it’s a similar letter to this where the patient is advised to contact the clinic after a certain period.

image
image1175×1672 136 KB

Note: This example uses test patient data

5

Thanks, i had this response from someone on the E-referral team

The letter which patients receive are in place following agreements with clinical councils and the DOH. They cannot be removed or switched off and are in place for every referral made through e-RS. The timeframe is calculated by e-RS from the date of referral and this is 40 working days for routine referrals. It does not mean that the patient has to have an appointment within 40 days, it means the referral needs to be acknowledged by the provider.