Changes to electronic patient referral systems should enable practices to cut the time involved in the process, it has been announced.

NHS Digital said it had improved the NHS e-Referral Service (e-RS), to help make referring easier. The changes have been made following feedback from GPs and consultants and it means provider clinicians can now turn an advice conversation directly into a referral.

NHS Digital will introduce further changes at the end of March, it said. This will allow the advice and guidance function to be integrated into provider systems so that conversations can be directly embedded into the patient’s medical record and clinicians do not have to switch between systems to seek advice from each other.

Martin O’Keeffe, senior clinical lead from NHS Digital, said: “By making it easier for primary and secondary care clinicians to talk to each other, we know that GPs can get the advice they need at their fingertips while hospital consultants can have greater confidence that a referral is appropriate before a patient is referred to them. This will make the whole process smoother and simpler for everyone involved and ultimately will improve patient care. This is part of a series of improvements that are being made to the NHS e-Referral service designed to help clinicians and patients. We hope that giving clinicians the tools they need for true, shared decision making will support them to make the best, evidence-based choices for their patients.”