EeRS September 2024

Community Eyecare Service (Wheatbridge) – North triage service – LIVE.

University Hospital of Derby and Burton

• Royal Derby Hospital, Ilkeston Community Hospital, Long Eaton Community Hospital and Ripley Community Hospital – 3 waves commencing weekly starting LIVE – (16 Wave 1 opticians only)
• Queen’s Hospital Burton, Sir Robert Peel Community Hospital and Samuel Johnson Community Hospital – 3 waves commencing weekly starting TBC.

ISPs (Cataract and YAG):

• NewMedica (Chesterfield) – LIVE TODAY
• SpaMedica (Derby, Chesterfield, Manchester, Newcastle under Lyme, Sheffield, Oldham) – LIVE TODAY
• Practice Plus Group (Chesterfield) – LIVE TODAY

ISPs (Wet AMD).

• Eyecare Medical (Macclesfield) – LIVE TODAY

IMPORTANT NOTE, the ISP cataract pathway should only be visible to optical practices which are approved for the Derbyshire cataract scheme, as per Cataract List to Refer in Optometrists January 2024 » Joined Up Care Derbyshire. Please let me know as soon as possible if this has not been configured incorrectly.

ISP – CHEC – TBC

Chesterfield Royal – TBC.

Virtual Triage Service – South – TBC.

Sight Support – TBC.

Across region/non-commissioned referrals – TBC.

Opticians Onboarding Status

The EeRS Project Team and Local Optical Committee (LOC) would like to say a massive THANK YOU for all those optometrists who have submitted their expressions of interest and are either in progress or are ready and waiting for go-live. Our reports indicate 98 (94%) of Derbyshire opticians that have submitted an expression of interest, of which:

• 94 (90%) are LIVE with access to Wheatbridge and the ISPs listed.

• • Of which 16 are LIVE with UHDB-Derby sites

• 4 (4%) are progressing through the onboarding process.
• 7 (7%) are waiting expressions of interest.

Reminder of Key Points/Lessons Learnt

• Business Change Process: Please distribute this message to all referrers and secretaries, once services are live optical practices/referrers SHOULD NOT be referring via email for routine appointments.
• Patient identification: EeRS using the national Patient Demographic Service to identify a patient and their GP, however for clinical safety purposes this can be bypassed only IF the patient does not have an NHS number. Any patient with no NHS number as they have never had NHS care or registered with a GP should be encouraged to register with a local GP to potential referral rejections. For all other patients please ensure you verify the patient’s details (as per their GP record) prior to submitting your referral. Failure to verify a patient may result in:

• • An error in patient identification by the service provider.
  • The referral being rejected.
  • Incomplete flow/process of the referral into clinical systems – including the national electronic Referral Service (eRS).

• • • This delays the referral as booking teams must manually extract and upload the patient referral from EeRS to their local booking systems.
    • No automatically generated referral tracking number (UBRN) – this is used by providers to track and monitor referral status and can be given to patients to chase/manage their own referral and appointments.

• • The GP is not identified and therefore excluded from the automated distribution list for the triage ‘outcome letter’.
  • Large attachments including OCTs could be corrupted during the manual extraction process making them unavailable for clinic consultants.

• Clinical Pathways: EeRS is designed to improve efficiencies, the quality of referrals, and to provide full reporting of your referrals. To do this each provider has agreed a list of clinical pathways (e.g. glaucoma, cataract, corneal). This allows the team to tailor the form to the pathway as well as the outcomes process. This will mean that as a referrer you will identify your patient > pick your chosen provider > pick the relevant pathway. We are aware however some cases are not straight forward, or a patient may be eligible for multiple pathways within one referral, therefore please select the most relevant or highest priority clinical pathway. If the consultant later decides the pathway was incorrect, they can move the referral to the correct pathway or if appropriate to another Derbyshire site; for example: Royal Derby paediatric team may feel the case is more clinically suitable for Burton paediatrics.

Have you submitted your Expression of Interest?

There are currently only 7 outstanding expressions of interest. If you have not already onboarded or completed your onboarding process – see instructions below, please act now to ensure your practice can refer securely into Derbyshire providers. Future features will also be added later to support practices to refer using EeRS for services outside of Derbyshire commissioned pathways and EeRS, I will be contacting those, particularly on the North-East and North-West border to support with this setup.

In Process and Stacked practices:

• Onboard all your users and ensure training is complete.
• Please await further instructions from EeRS team, LOC and Cinapsis for go-live status.
• Again, thank you for your patience.

Please note your Eyecare electronic Referral Service account will be switched from training mode by the supplier on go-live.

LIVE practices:

• Join the EeRS support WhatsApp group (contact Liz, Allissa, or myself to be added)
• Look out for communications regarding providers as they deploy.

• • These will be announced by the EeRS team, LOC and Cinapsis.

• If you have any feedback regarding EeRS good/bad please let me know.