Unhappy path with refused referral

e-Referral Service (e-RS)
1

Posting here in case it is useful for the development / product team for e-RS about an unhappy path that didn’t work quite how I’d expect.

What happened:

  1. I was referred by GP to unspecified specialist service
  2. This triggered an email from noreply@refer.nhs.uk to say that I’d been referred
  3. [Unknown to me, the referral was quickly refused by the specialist service]
  4. I clicked to view and track the referral and there was nothing there
  5. Confusion for next 2-3 weeks but didn’t want to bother my GP!
  6. Looking at GP record in NHS App I can see they received and noted refusal

As a patient I think it would be useful to receive a referral refused / returned to GP notification to finish the patient facing part of the service or to see a historic/refused referral in the tracking view otherwise you get the initial referral email and then are left hanging!

Happy to chat to UR / product people if useful :slight_smile:

2

Hi @HenryDWright - Thanks for reaching out, we really appreciate it!

This is an issue which is very much in the forefront of our patient comms initiative. It has been increasingly clear, especially as we have exposed more and more referral and appointment information on the App, that there are gaps in the information passed to patients. In some cases there are expectations that the service, or in your case the GP practice, would action and communicate this out; and sometimes they do. We even have patient letters for this very scenario but the service treads a fine line being the carrier of a referral, and not the owner.

I have passed your message onto the product team for info. and consideration.

Thanks again for your engagement and taking the time to feedback to us - very much appreciated and welcomed.

Thanks,
Z.