111 Referral Standard: Final Report

• The survey responses and discussions with individual sector focus groups confirmed that the UK wide 111 Referral standard will provide the information required for a clear and informative 111 Referral to any organisation or services the person may go to next following an encounter with 111.
• There is variance across the UK with the Clinical Decision Support Systems (CDSS) used by the 111 services, resulting in differences in the content, structure and workflow of the 111 reports. All UK Countries are keen to standardise the information and information flows.
• All aspects of the 111 Referral consultation, involving general practice, (the survey, GP focus groups & interviews) reported that the existing 111 reports were difficult to read due to the inclusion of the NHS Pathways negative responses and the overall format pushing the important information to the bottom of the 111 report. Discussions with the JGP IT Committee and other GPs representatives confirmed that a subset of the 111 Referral could be used to create a much improved general practice PEM.

There is widespread support for the general practice PEM to be updated as soon as possible.

• The comparison of the 999 data set with the 111 Referral standard confirmed that the 999 services data set can be used to populate the 111 Referral standard. This will support the sending of referrals that do not require the 999 services to 111, but where the 999 service refers directly to other services in the same way as 111 services.
• There are technical developments underway to improve interoperability and information flows across the wider health and care system. These being the implementation of SNOMED by the Clinical Decision Support supplier systems and the ability of sending and receiving systems to send and receive messages via FIHR messaging, the 111 referral standard has been developed with the future in mind but will need updating alongside the system technical developments as required.