NHSX/ NHS Digital Booking and Referral Standards market engagement webinar

2.30pm – 3.30pm 25 March 2021

What are Booking and Referral Standards (BaRS)?

The ultimate purpose of developing Booking and Referral Standards (BaRS) is simple; we want to deliver national standards that will be usable and accepted by our healthcare provider and system suppliers, that will effectively support the movement of patients and their clinical referral information more easily around the system.

The BaRS work is gaining momentum, recently expanding its scope to deliver a standard for Referrals. This work will complement the Booking standard that is already available.

The new Referral standard will initially focus on a 111 to Emergency Department (ED) (also known as Accident and Emergency or A&E) pathway. However, overtime and through iterations, we intend that this standard will be expanded for use in numerous health care settings in the future.

Why this work is important

As appointment booking becomes the norm as part of NHS 111 First and wider projects, we want to provide suppliers with a modern API to build against and one that will support the referral process.

NHSX and NHS Digital have many suppliers that are supporting the booking standard and , by developing the referral standard now, the hope is it will provide a more rounded solution and ultimately an improved patient experience.

At the event, the team is keen to share the benefits of Booking and Referral standards and what they could mean for healthcare system suppliers.

They are also seeking interest from any suppliers who would be willing to work collaboratively with them on the development of the Referral standard and to support the activities to bring the work to the market.

Ideally, they would like as many healthcare system suppliers as possible to join them, especially those who have experience of delivering and supporting patient booking and referrals.

The webinar will be delivered in partnership with us here at techUK, with representatives from NHSX and NHS Digital in attendance, including specialists in technology architecture and programme delivery, who will be able to answer questions you have.

How to register for the webinar

If you are interested in attending the BaRS marketing engagement webinar on Thursday 25 March, starting at 2.30pm, you can find out more and complete their registration form here. Once you are registered, you will receive further details, including instructions on how to join the webinar.