e-Referral Service

Camden Clinical Assessment Service (CCAS) has changed its name to Camden, Haringey and Islington Referral Support Service (CHI RSS)  & e-Referrals (formerly Choose and Book) 

Please be aware that our NHS normal referrals go via a local referral managment service. These referrals are vetted locally by a panel of doctors from Camden, Haringey and Islington .  The doctor peer reviewers may decline or send back your referral to us with comments/actions/suggestions if the referral doesn’t meet these guidelines or they feel we should do or try more things first. 

For referrals that do not meet the criteria for referral to secondary care,  CHI RSS may return referrals if they haven't followed either NICE guidance or local clinical pathways.

The CHI RSS may not authorise our referral for other reasons. This may be as or as this condition may not be covered by the NHS or that the condition may be covered but that we need to apply for funding and get approval first. You can contact CHI RSS on 0203 198 4427, Mon-Fri 9:30am-4:30pm to speak to them if you have not heard back regarding an appointment or want further clarification.

EBICS - Evidence Based Interventions and Clinical Standards (formerly PoLCE) is the referral process for patients needing a procedure where certain criteria or a threshold must be met before funding is approved. Please be aware the name of this program changed from PoLCE on 8 October 2019 to EBICS from September 2019.

Finally, once a referral reaches the a hospital, their own specialist doctors then also review the referral and they may adjust the urgency of the referral or sometimes decline the referral if they feel that the condition does not meet their own thresholds or that other things ie treatments/tests need to be done first.

It is worth noting that presently most eConsult referrals are declined even if there is sufficient information which meets the threshold for referral. In most these cases there is insufficent information or the referral thereholds may have not been reached.

All referrals must go via the E- Referral system. We do not have the ability to book with a specific consultant just Hospital Speciality. Please liaise with the Hospital Appointments team who may be able to offer you more advice about the clinicians likely to see you. Often they too may not aware of which precise doctors will be available on the day.  

The NHS e-Referral Service (e-RS) combines electronic booking with a choice of place, date and time (where available) for their first hospital or clinic appointments. Patients can choose their initial hospital or clinic appointment. The waiting times are generally long at present on the NHS. We have no control over this. Many times referrals are 'deferred to provider' which means placed on a holding list with the hospital until they are able to book an appointment, which is when the patient will be contacted. We would encourage patients to contact the hospital directly as we have no influence over these waiting times. Similarly, we would encourage initially patients to liaise with CHI RSS directly to take the soonest available appointment, which may not be at their hospital of preferance and before accepting to be 'deferred to provider' enquiry about indictive waiting times and considering alternative options ie other hospitals a bit further away, if they have much shorter waiting times.

Please also note the Royal Free Hospital is based not only in Hampstead, but also has sites in Edgware, Chase Farm and Barnet Hospital. For surgical issues, much of the activity including the outpatients and operations occur at Chase Farm, which is not close. Please consider how easy it is for your attend this site and if it is difficult, it may be better to be referred to University College London, The Whittington Hospital or St Mary's Hospital which are all much closer. 

Please note all Urgent Referrals are sent directly to the Hospitals who then clinically assess and traige the referral and arrange the appointments accordingly. Often waiting times for Urgent Referrals can be still some months. Again we have no control over these. 
For Cancer Referrals the waiting times are generally within 2 weeks for your first appointment. We would contact, ussually by email/text within one working day if we find an appointment available. If we do not find an appointment that we can directly book into then you should be  contacted within 3 working days directly by the trust. If you do not get contacted then do contact us.

For any follow up Hospital appointments we have no involvement or control or awarness over these appointments. Please do liaise directly with Hospital in this regards. If you are very unhappy with Hospital service/waits/treatments then do liaise with Hospital's own Patient Advisory Liaison Service (PALS)

Self Referrals

Most medical problems are managed in GP surgeries.  Some services allow you to refer yourself such as physiotherapy, psychotherapy and Social Prescribing as well as Social services (see our link for self referrals). As has been already mentionned, Conditions that need to be treated in a hospital setting will be referred on via e-referral to the Referral Support Service who assess referrals for suitability. Occasionally a referral is rejected and an alternative pathway is suggested.