Referral Triage Services - NHS Birmingham Cross City CCG (Market Engagement Event)

Tender description

NHS Birmingham Cross City CCG is looking to undertake a procurement to commission a twelve month pilot to deliver referral triage services for elective referrals from primary care. The anticipated start date of this service is the 1st April 2016 and is part of a wider project to test out different approaches to referral triage. As well as triaging referrals, this service is expected to also include education/up skilling of primary care and resourcing GP membership to manage activity as result of triage referrers providing advice and guidance for conservative management within general practice. Currently it is expected that the referral triage services will need to be able to cover a wide range of elective specialities. The service would aim to deliver the following outcomes: • Improve quality of referrals through effective triage; • Eliminating inappropriate referral activity through patients being seen in the right setting first time; • Up skilling of general practice in specific disease areas through CPD and education supported by consultant feedback; • Improved patient experience and satisfaction by patient been seen in appropriate setting first time. • Production of robust intelligence to inform future commissioning decisions • To test and evaluate proof of concept particularly in regard to the feasibility of managing the demand for hospital-based outpatient services Service Description: The service would provide clinical assessment by experienced and specially trained consultants in defined specialties who would triage referral letters from general practice and then send back to the GP for conservative management or onward referral to secondary care, promoting choice through national Choose & Book system. To avoid delays, triage of referrals will be undertaken in 2 working days. To up skill in specific disease areas, provider will be required to support education and training of primary care in management of specific disease areas within general practice. Success Factors: The CCG expects that providers would have the following capability: • Independent and impartial clinicians who have experience and knowledge of UK healthcare system • Have access facilities to accept referrals via choose & book and make onward referrals via Choose & Book • Have functionality which allows interoperability of clinical system with CCG NHS IT systems to allow information flows efficiently and securely across the designated and implemented pathways using NHS N3 connection. • Ability to offer seven day working. The CCG is holding a market engagement event with potential providers who may be interested delivering this service on 4th June 2015 at 13:00 hours (venue to be confirmed). The purpose of this event is for the CCG to share thinking about the model of delivery, pathway and financial tariffs.