NHS e-Referral Service
Referrals to named consultant-led team
The NHS e-Referral Service supports referrals to named consultant-led teams
through the ‘Named Clinician’ functionality, as well as referrals to ‘generic’ (or
‘pooled’) services to which multiple clinicians are assigned.
Patients may choose to be referred to a named consultant-led team or there may be
genuine clinical reasons why a referrer may suggest to the patient that referral to a
specific clinical team is preferable. These include:

referral to a consultant-led team known to have a particular specialist or subspecialist interest in the patient’s condition

referral back to a consultant-led team which had previously managed a
patient

as a follow-up to an advice and guidance (A&G) request, where it seems most
appropriate and where the patient has chosen to see the clinician who has
provided the A&G response.
Provider set up for Named Clinician Referral
Named clinicians can be selected for a service within the ‘Service Personnel’ section
of the service description in the Directory of Services (DoS). Clinicians must be
registered with Smartcards and added to a workgroup associated with the service
within the DoS.
All staff that have the role of Service Provider Clinician will available for selection as
a named clinician. Please note that a clinician can be either ‘allocated’ only, or both
‘allocated’ and ‘named’ - but cannot be named without being allocated
A NAMED clinician is one who is associated with a service and whose name can be
used by a referrer to search for services that have specific, named, slots assigned to
them.
An ALLOCATED (but non-named) clinician will still be associated with the service,
have an individual worklist assigned (from which to manage referrals), but will not be
searchable using the ‘Named Clinician’ functionality.
In order to support bookings to named consultant-led teams, specific appointment
slots for named clinicians should be allocated within hospital Patient Administration
Systems (PAS).
Should a consultant’s name be included in the service name?
No. Placing the name of a clinician within the service name makes it much more
difficult for providers to manage their capacity (using pooled clinics), and is confusing
and unhelpful for patients and referrers, who may be presented with long lists of
similar services at the same provider.
Can named clinician slots be offered within a ‘generic’ or ‘pooled’
service?
Yes. ‘Generic’ or ‘pooled’ services should be set up on the NHS e-Referral Service
with named clinicians being listed individually as part of the service definition. The
NHS e-Referral Service requires a referrer to specifically enter the name of a
clinician in order to access named appointment slots, meaning that most referrals
can still be directed to any of the clinicians in a pooled service, if a referral to a
named consultant-led team is not required. This should help ensure that all available
appointment slots are put to best use.
Can named clinician referrals be made available for indirectly bookable
services?
Yes. Referrals to named consultant-led teams can be made using the NHS eReferral Service for both Directly Bookable Services (DBS) and Indirectly Bookable
Services (IBS). The named clinician will appear on the patient’s appointment request
and be seen by the booking manager when the patient telephones to book their
appointment. This should allow them to book an appropriate appointment with a
specified consultant-led team.
How to ensure the appropriateness of referrals to named consultant-led
teams and to manage demand
Referrals to a named consultant-led team should only be made where the patient’s
informed choice has been fully taken into account and where such a referral is
clinically appropriate.
Providers are required to accept all clinically appropriate referrals and have a
responsibility to assess whether the referral information meets their acceptance
criteria. There should be no difference in criteria used to reject referrals to a named
consultant-led team or to any other service.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are referrals to named consultant-led teams available for all providers
and for all of their services?
All consultant-led services can be listed on the NHS e-Referral Service with the
ability for patients to book to named consultants. If a provider has not enabled the
‘Named Clinician’ functionality, then referrers can seek the support of their
commissioning lead in requiring the provider to list their services in this way.
There are very few secondary care providers whose Patient Administration Systems
(PAS) are currently unable to support the full ‘Named Clinician’ functionality in the
NHS e-Referral Service. These trusts will be supported in finding alternative ways of
managing referrals to consultant- led teams until such time as their PAS systems are
fully compliant. If support is required, NHS e-Referral Service Implementation team
can be contacted at nhs.ers@hscic.gov.uk
Who is responsible for registering consultants working for Independent
Sector Healthcare providers (ISHCP) to enable them to be set up as
named clinicians on NHS e-Referral Service?
The CCG in which an ISHCP is located is responsible for providing the Registration
Authority Manager (RAM) service to the provider. The Registration Authorities
Operational Process and Guidance states:
If NHS organisations use services from an ISHCP they can choose one of the
following options:

Provide RA services from their own resource to the ISHCP

Identify sponsors belonging to the ISHCP to perform the sponsor role using
the same business process as for their own organisation, whilst retaining the
RA agent role

Identify RA agents belonging to the ISHCP to perform the RA agent role using
the same business process as for their own organisation, whilst retaining the
sponsor role

Use a combination of sponsor and RA agents belonging to the ISHCP.
Guidance on RA and smartcards can be found at www.hscic.gov.uk/rasmartcards. How do I amend an existing service that has the clinician listed as part
of the service name?
The following steps should be followed to change an existing service (that has the
clinician incorrectly listed as part of the service name) to a new service with the
correct ‘Named Clinician’ functionality enabled:
1. Ensure each clinician to be ‘named’ has been registered with a Smartcard
2. If only one clinician runs this service, then simply remove the clinician’s name
from the service name and add the clinician through the service personnel
section of the service definition screen, as described above.
3. If there are several services with individual clinicians’ names to be changed,
then create and publish new pooled service(s), attach the relevant named
clinicians to the service and map the service to the appropriate PAS clinic
template(s).
4. Ensure that you have agreed the timescales for change with commissioners,
who must ensure that referrers know how and when to use the ‘Named
Clinician’ functionality.
If retiring old services and replacing them with new ones, using the correct ‘Named
Clinician’ functionality, it is very important to manage this change in a controlled way,
in order to ensure that the correct services are available to the referrer.
Old services (where a clinician’s name appears incorrectly in the service name) will
be able to go into a ‘transition’ state prior to being discontinued. This means that the
service will no longer be visible for referrers to shortlist, but will still be available for
patients to book into, if they already have this service on their shortlist. Within the
service definition, an end-date must be added to all transitioning services. This
should be set to a date sufficiently far into the future so as to allow patients with this
service on their shortlist to complete their booking. Patients with referral requests will
not be able to book an appointment to the service after its end date has passed.
Service definers are advised to remove the services from the NHS e-Referral
Service as soon as possible after the end date has passed.
Problems in publishing named clinician slots
In order for named clinician slots to be published in the NHS e-Referral Service, the
PAS/EPR needs to notify the NHS e-Referral Service of the named clinician
assigned to each appointment slot. It does this by sending the clinician smartcard
user ID and role profile ID to the NHS e-Referral Service. If the expected named
clinician slots are not showing, it is likely that the PAS/EPR has not sent the
necessary information through.
The way PAS/EPR systems obtain the required smartcard information to publish
named clinician slots can vary. For example, the information may be held locally on
the PAS/EPR, or the PAS/EPR interrogates the Spine Directory Service (SDS) to
obtain the information. Service providers therefore need to understand which of
these apply to their system.
Where the information (Smartcard ID and Role Profile ID) is held locally, this problem
should not occur. Where the information is not held locally, the PAS/EPR system will
use the clinician’s GMC number to obtain the smartcard user ID and role profile ID
from the SDS. Providing the GMC code has been included in the user profile on the
SDS, then the Smartcard ID and Role Profile will be returned and named slots will be
visible.
A problem occurs where the clinician GMC number is not contained in their User
Profile on the SDS (i.e. it was not added correctly when the user profile was
created). Your local Registration Authority (RA) Agent should be able to check the
profile of any clinician within your organisation to see if the GMC number has been
added correctly on the SDS.
Where the GMC number is missing or is incorrect, a service request needs to be
raised with the National Service Desk (NSD), who will arrange for a change request
to be raised for action. Change requests are submitted for action on a fortnightly
basis on a Friday, so in theory the longest you could be waiting is 2 weeks from
raising the incident with the NSD.
Note: Your local service desk will be able to raise this call and should log the service
request under Minimum Data Set ‘CFH – Organisation Data Service (ODS / NACS)‘
and Incident Type of ‘Load Consultant Code onto the SUD’.