Booking, referrals and appointments (with IT)
Booking, referrals and appointments (with IT)
Digital technology can facilitate health and care staff to support referrals in and out of pharmacy and can support patients to book an appointment efficiently.
User research opportunity: NHS Digital would like to hear from community pharmacy team members about the new Booking and Referral Standard (BaRS) to ensure it supports the needs of pharmacy teams and their patients. BaRS is an interoperability standard for healthcare IT systems which is intended to enable booking and/or referral information to be sent to or from care providers quickly, safely and in a format that is useful to clinicians. If you would like to take part or have any questions, please contact it@psnc.org.uk / bookingandreferralstandard@nhs.net.
Types of appointments
Appointment types booked via technology could include:
- pre-bookable walk-in appointments;
- Remote consultations; or
- Virtual Visits pilot appointments.
Patients maybook an appointment using a website, an app, the phone. They may also make an appointment in person.
Lists of systems and suppliers
Systems and suppliers (bookings) with NHS assurance include:
- National Booking Service for COVID-19 vaccination appointments
- Booking systems with NHS Digital assurance via the Digital Care Services Framework
Apps with appointment systems assured by the NHS:
- NHS App
- List of Apps / systems which have received IM1 integration assurance (some but not all IM1 apps have met GP appointment standards)
IT standards
The use of ‘standards’ within the health sector enables people, devices and systems to communicate in a more efficient and electronic manner. Standards can also reduce the need for health and care workers to ‘re-key’ booking related information and for patients to need to repeat themselves about their bookings.
There are several key IT standards related to booking and referrals:
- Booking and Referral Standard (BaRS) – is an interoperability standard for healthcare IT systems that is intended to enable booking and referral information to be sent between NHS service providers quickly, safely and in a format that is useful to clinicians. The ambition is it will eventually be available in all care settings and encompass other boking and referral standards.
- GP Connect appointment standards
- Patient Facing Services
- Interface mechanism (IM1) NHS standards
Community Pharmacy IT Group (CP ITG) work
The CP ITG held a workshop to formulate views on this topic, click on the link to find out more read: CP ITG views about IT relating to booking, referrals and appointments.
Further info
If you have queries on this webpage or you require more information please contact it@psnc.org.uk.
Return to the Pharmacy IT hub; Communications using IT or IT a-z index