NHSE tells trusts: ‘be robust’ with GP referrals

An NHS England director says trusts should use ‘as robust triage as you can possibly do’ when deciding whether to accept referrals from GPs.

Ian Eardley, NHSE’s joint national clinical director for elective recovery, was asked during an internal NHSE webinar how trusts can encourage GPs to work more closely with secondary care to make sure they only send appropriate referrals.

He said: “There’s got to be as robust triage as you can possibly do, so if you’ve got referrals coming in which haven’t got the relevant or wrong information, then I think you need senior clinicians in a position to go back to the GP and say we need this bit of information or the other… Ultimately, it’s about robust front-end management.”

However, he admitted it was a “difficult [issue and] really difficult to do anything centrally”.

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Source: HSJ, 23 November 2022