As we head into colder months, pressures on hospital teams become more challenging, and clinical capacity to clear backlogs and validate referrals more stretched. That’s why NHS hospitals with clinical capacity challenges turn to our National Consultant Network (NCN) of NHS consultants working remotely. As ‘virtual locums’, the NCN can deliver:
Advice & Guidance (A&G), on e-RS or other systems with no change to current flows:
It’s well known that primary care clinicians refer fewer patients to hospital if they get timely specialist input first.
Enabling the NCN to review A&G requests on e-RS or other local systems, means patients who do not need referral can be safely managed in primary care and, for those needing a referral, peace of mind that they are put onto the right pathway, first time.
Referral Triage and Validation, safely reducing waiting lists by as much as a third and even more in some specialties:
The service, which has already triaged over 60,000 referrals, brings in the expertise of the NCN, following local pathways and protocols, under the leadership of local clinical leads. The NCN:
- Initiates diagnostics where needed
- Identifies important upgrades and downgrades
- Returns cases to Primary Care with management plans
- Can be used to validate follow up lists
The service is flexible and our switch-on/switch-off model means as local capacities change, it can be increased to cover more specialties, reduced or turned off completely with 72 hours’ notice.
For more information, get in touch:
If you have any questions, or would like to discuss switching on the NCN to support your area with A&G or referral triage and validation, email hello@consultantconnect.org.uk or call us on 01865 261 467.
Related materials:
- What we do: Referral Triage
- What we do: National Consultant Network
- What we do: Enhanced Advice & Guidance
- What we do: Advice and Refer by Consultant Connect
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