As part of the Success Regime plans, the Planned Care Control Centre agreed to run a pilot on 'rapid referral review' across Urology in Western Devon. This process is carried out by GP Care who have been working closely with the CCG to develop the pilot.

The pilot will provide several benefits that include:

• Speedy advice for those patients which require a GP management plan.
• Decreasing secondary care referrals allowing shorter waiting times for those who are a priority.
• Advice about appropriate investigations prior to a secondary care appointment and directing patients towards the most appropriate service.
• Supporting GPs to manage patients within their practice.
• Developing GPs knowledge and experience in managing urology conditions.
• Reviewing the pathways for urology referrals and identify any improvements that could be made.
• Identifying commissioning opportunities to improve the urology pathway.
• Identifying if there could be any opportunities to develop CPD verified training for local GPs around managing urology conditions.

What do practices need to do?

There is no change to the referral process for GP practices to access the new service – you continue to send your urology referrals to Devon Referral Support Service (DRSS) as normal who will direct your referral to the new rapid referral review service at GP Care. (2WW referrals will be sent directly to the Hospital as usual via the current process).

Please ensure the DRSS referral template is fully completed to help the team understand the issues, and decrease the need for requests for further information.

• GP Care will then respond within 48 hours (2 working days) with their recommendations and whether the patient could be managed in primary care with a management plan, or suggest the patient needs to be seen/referred to the hospital

DRSS will process the response and will:

• Forward to the hospital, on behalf of your GP practice, any patients where referral is recommended.
• Return any referrals to the referring GP when there is a recommendation from where the patient could be managed in primary care - the referring GP would be required to review this response and manage as appropriate
• Return the referral form asking for further details if sufficient information is given to process the request.

The pilot commenced on the 8 February 2016.

Click here for full GP communication

The CCG will be undertaking a formal evaluation of the Urology referral review Test of Change and are discussing via each hospital's representatives on the Success Regime elective care operational group how to co-ordinate input. From 23 June 2016 a feedback form is being sent to all GP practices that receive advice to feed into this evaluation and results from this may help inform design of other future processes.