🏥 HealthTechOn Time📋 Fixed Price

NHS Outpatient Referral System — FHIR R4 Integrated

UK6 min readUpdated June 2025
Region
UK
Contract
Fixed Price
Tech Stack
8 Technologies
IP
100% transferred

Project Overview

An NHS Foundation Trust needed to replace a 2007 paper-based outpatient referral system. GPs referred patients...

Technology Stack

Next.jsNode.js/FastifyPostgreSQLNHS eRS APINHS Spine PDS FHIR R4GP Connect FHIR R4NHS Smartcard authAWS eu-west-2

Compliance & Standards

DTAC all 5 domainsDCB0129NHS DSP ToolkitFHIR R4 UK CoreWCAG 2.1 AAUK GDPR Article 9Cyber Essentials Plus

The Challenge

An NHS Foundation Trust needed to replace a 2007 paper-based outpatient referral system. GPs referred patients via paper forms — manually processed by the Trust's admin team. Average referral processing time: 6.2 days. Referral Advice and Guidance (RAG) requests (GPs seeking specialist advice without a full referral) were handled by email. The Trust had a target of NHS e-Referral Service (eRS) integration and FHIR R4 patient matching. Budget: £85,000.

Our Approach

NHS e-Referral Service (eRS) Integration: NHS eRS API integration for: referral request creation, appointment slot retrieval, patient pathway tracking, and RAG (Referral Advice and Guidance) workflow. NHS Smartcard authentication for clinical staff. NHS RBAC (Role-Based Access Control) — only authorised clinical roles can access patient referral data. FHIR R4 Patient Matching: NHS Spine PDS (Personal Demographics Service) FHIR R4 API for patient matching: NHS Number verification, patient demographic retrieval. GP Connect FHIR R4 for GP clinical data access. UK Core FHIR R4 profiles: Patient, Appointment, ServiceRequest resources. DTAC All 5 Domains: Domain 1: Clinical Safety Officer appointed, DCB0129 compliant, Hazard Log maintained. Domain 2: DSP Toolkit Standards Met. Domain 3: Cyber Essentials Plus, CREST pen test. Domain 4: FHIR R4 UK Core compliant. Domain 5: WCAG 2.1 AA, user research with 28 clinical staff. RAG Workflow: Referral Advice and Guidance: structured question form (replacing free-text email), specialist assignment algorithm (specialty + geography + capacity), response SLA tracking (24-hour target), GP notification via NHS Notify, and clinical audit trail.

The Results

Live at 16 weeks, £78,000 — under budget. DTAC approved all 5 domains (first submission). Referral processing: 6.2 days → 1.4 days average. RAG response rate within 24-hour SLA: 91% (previously unmeasured — email response time averaged 4.7 days). GP satisfaction: 4.6/5 (vs 2.1/5 paper system). NHS eRS integration: zero rejected referrals in first 3 months. CQC inspection: referral system cited as good practice.

Client Testimonial
Six point two days to one point four days — that is 4.8 days faster for every patient referred. At 14,000 referrals per year, that is 67,000 patient-days of waiting eliminated. The DTAC first-submission pass meant we went live 3 months ahead of the board's target." — Chief Clinical Information Officer, NHS Foundation Trust (name withheld)
ClickMasters Case Study Team
Reviewed by James Whitmore, CTO

Project Details

Sector
HealthTech
Country
UK
Status
On Time
Contract
Fixed Price
Tech Stack
8 Technologies
Reading Time
6 min
IP Ownership
100% transferred
Last Updated
June 2025
Written By
ClickMasters Case Study Team
Reviewed By
James Whitmore, CTO

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