Station Rise
York, Y01 6GA
Y01 6GA
Tel: 01904 555870
RNID typetalk: prefix-18001
Email:
Website:
Friday 22nd May 2015
Dear Colleague,
Replacement of Choose and Book by NHS eReferral
The important message is that whilst you need to know what’s happening, this change to Choose & Book does not change how you send referrals via the ICG to the RSS.
Practices no longer use Choose & Book to refer patients into secondary care but it will behelpful for you to be aware of the change that takes effect on the 15th June 2015 when Choose & Book becomes the new NHS e-Referral Service.
Your practice’s referrals are now handled by the Referral Support Service and there is no change to this.
The responsibility of a referring GP practice to manage a patient’s referral to hospital until the patient activates their e-Referral request and books an appointment does not change. After 15th June you will access the NHS e-Referral Service for Advice & Guidance requests and to check work lists for referrals returned from a hospital, or for children and vulnerable adult referrals that have not booked an appointment. Currently practices can see which of their referred patients have not booked a hospital appointment but whose referrals have been accepted on the Choose and Book work-lists.
The new NHS e-Referral Service will replace Choose and Book on June 15th 2015. Choose and Book will be switched off for all users at 19:00 on Friday 12th June.
The NHS e-Referral service will create a new platform to build on in the future and support simpler and faster integration with other IT systems and solutions (for example, GP Systems and Hospital Patient Administration Systems), which will benefit both professional users and patients.
Whilst the new service, with its more modern look and feel, will appear different, the functionality remains almost the same. This should ensure that users can continue to use the service on day one, without the need for re-training. Following a short period of stabilisation, the service will be enhanced by making improvements and introducing new functionality.
No changes are required to smartcards. Smartcards and current roles will allow access to the new service.
The web address for NHS e-Referral Service is the same as the address for Choose and Book, being:
Integrated systems, i.e. GP Systems, will automatically connect to the new service.
During the weekend of the transition to the new service, all current and previous referrals will be migrated to the new service. This means that you will be able to access all referrals from day one.
The new service supports Internet Explorer 7, 8 and 9, along with Firefox and Google Chrome.
Action plan:
- Patient Web Application will turned off at 6pm on Friday 12th June
- Choose and Book will be switched off for all users at 7pm
- Technical cutover, and testing over the weekend
- The Appointment Line (TAL) will be manned throughout the weekend to support patients who are unable to access the web to book their appointment.
- Monday 15th June 7 am, users log in and begin using NHS e-Referral Service
- There will be no change to previous log-in process, smartcards will continue to work as with Choose and Book
- Access to work lists will be unchanged
- Current Choose and Book URL is unchanged (nww.ebs.ncrs.nhs.uk)
Functional defects which prevent you accessing NHS e-Referral should be reported to the local Yorkshire & Humber Commissioning Support IT helpdesk who will escalate the issue on your behalf to the National Service Desk
If anyone has any concerns or needs support in using the new NHS e-Referral Service please contact Allyson Kershaw on 01904 601022/ 07872419365, .
For further information on the transition to the NHS e-Referral Service please refer to the website: On this site there is information about the new service and specific information about role changes.
Yours sincerely
Dr Shaun O’ConnellAllyson Kershaw
GP Lead for Planned CareRSS Senior Manager