Welsh Ambulance Services University NHS Trust, London Ambulance Service NHS Trust and South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust are using Scribe Referral Management to support their referral pathways, with North East Ambulance Service NHS Trust currently rolling out the solution.
For ambulance clinicians, a single patient encounter can reveal much more than the immediate medical reason for a call.
A visit to someone’s home might highlight a safeguarding / welfare concern, a potential fire risk or domestic abuse concern, signs of dementia or circumstances that suggest additional support is needed.
Identifying these concerns is only the first step. Ensuring the right information reaches the right organisation, quickly and securely, is equally important.
For ambulance services covering multiple local authorities and healthcare organisations, this can be challenging. Different referral pathways, forms and information requirements can create additional administration for frontline clinicians and the teams responsible for managing referrals.
Scribe Referral Management, developed by Doc-works, helps ambulance services simplify this process, connecting frontline clinicians with the organisations best placed to provide further support.
One patient encounter, multiple referral pathways
Rather than requiring clinicians to navigate different processes for different referral types, Scribe provides a consistent digital approach to capturing and sharing information.
The solution enables clinicians to record relevant information once and use it to make multiple onward referrals where appropriate, helping reduce duplicated administration.
Referrals can be directed to the relevant local authority, healthcare provider or partner organisation, with alerts and audit trails helping teams maintain visibility of the process.
Scribe supports a wide range of referral pathways, including safeguarding / welfare, fire risk, dementia, domestic abuse and other areas where patients may benefit from additional support.
Crucially, the solution can work alongside existing clinical systems and workflows, allowing ambulance services to strengthen their referral processes without necessarily replacing their existing ePCR solution.
Built around the needs of each ambulance service
Although ambulance services face many of the same challenges, their referral requirements are rarely identical.
Each Trust works with different local authorities, healthcare providers and partner agencies, with its own referral pathways, processes and information requirements.
Rather than applying a single approach across every organisation, Doc-works works closely with individual ambulance services to understand their requirements and configure Scribe around the way their teams operate.
This flexibility means services can introduce the referral pathways that matter most to their communities while providing clinicians with a familiar and consistent way of recording and submitting information.
It also allows referral processes to evolve as new requirements emerge or additional partner organisations become involved.
Supporting better connected patient care
Effective referral management isn’t simply about submitting a form. It’s about helping ensure that concerns identified during an ambulance visit can be acted upon by the appropriate organisation.
By making it easier to capture and share relevant information, Scribe helps connect ambulance services with the wider network of organisations supporting patients in their communities.
This can reduce duplicated information gathering, support more efficient referral handling and help patients access the services they may need.
For safeguarding and referral teams, having greater visibility of referral activity also supports oversight, reporting and audit requirements.
Working with ambulance services across the UK
Doc-works has an established history of working with ambulance services to develop digital referral pathways.
Welsh Ambulance Services University NHS Trust has worked with Doc-works since 2017, developing a digital safeguarding referral system across Wales and expanding its use to support additional referral pathways.
Nikki Harvey, Head of Safeguarding at Welsh Ambulance Services University NHS Trust, said:
“Welsh Ambulance Services University NHS Trust have worked in collaboration with Doc-works to develop and implement a fully digitalised safeguarding reporting system across the whole of Wales. The system enables our staff to make safeguarding referrals directly from their iPad’s and PC’s to the appropriate Local Authority or partner agency in real time.
“Since the implementation Doc-works have continued to support us in creating a suite of referral pathways for service users with specific needs including Fire and Rescue Services, Live Fear Free (domestic abuse) and Dementia.”
While each service has different requirements, they share a common objective: making it easier for frontline clinicians to identify concerns and connect patients with the organisations that can provide further support.
Ceri Jones, CEO of Doc-works, said:
“Ambulance clinicians are in a unique position to identify when someone may need additional support. The challenge is making it as straightforward as possible for that concern to reach the organisation that can help.
“Every ambulance service works with a different network of partners and has its own priorities. That’s why we work closely with each trust to understand its requirements and tailor referral pathways around the needs of its teams and the communities they serve.”
Making every referral count
As ambulance services continue to work more closely with local authorities, healthcare organisations and community partners, effective referral management plays an important role in connecting patients with wider support.
With established deployments across UK ambulance services, Scribe Referral Management offers a flexible digital approach that can adapt to different referral pathways and local requirements.
How much time does your organisation spend managing referrals across different systems, forms and partner agencies?
If you’re looking to simplify referral management, improve visibility or introduce new referral pathways, we would welcome a conversation.
Contact the Doc-works team or find out more about Scribe Referral Management and arrange a demonstration.