Referrals

During your consultation with the clinician it may be decided that you need to be referred to another service, or hospital. This is to determine how best to care for your health problem. Please make sure the practice has your up-to-date address and contact details. Wrong information may delay your referral.

There are three types of referral:

  1. standard referral
  2. urgent referral
  3. 'two-week wait' referral

Urgent or 'two-week wait' referrals will be processed by the secretarial team within 24 hours. All other referrals will be processed within 2 weeks. All referrals go initially to the Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire (BNSSG) Referral Service for review.

 

The BNSSG Referral Service

The BNSSG Referral Service has been developed by the BNSSG CCG for, and on behalf of, GP Practices in Bristol and North Somerset and South Gloucestershire. The service’s main purpose is to support patients and Primary Care. This is to enable patients to receive the right care, by the right person, at the right time and place, with minimum delays. The service outcomes include:

  • Patients having a better experience of being supported with making a choice about their provider, receiving the right help to navigate the system;
  • GPs have easier access to up-to-date information on caring for their patients. This includes clinical information and also choice support options. Information on referral advice and guidance, and pathways as well as a useful patient information leaflet can be found on Remedy: https://remedy.bnssgccg.nhs.uk;
  • Better information on referrals from a larger number of practices which will inform commissioning decisions and education for clinicians;
  • Better use of the existing resources that have been allocated to planned care.

Once your referral has been reviewed, the Referral Service will (i) send you a letter giving you the choice of providers to attend for an outpatient appointment, (ii) will write back to your GP advising about the best ways to manage your condition, or (iii) will suggest more appropriate alternative referral pathway.

Please contact our secretarial team should you require support relating to referrals via bnssg.mendipvale.scanners@nhs.net​