REGO – returned referrals update
2 February 2024
Dear Colleagues,
As you are now aware BOB ICB area has transitioned to using REGO as its chosen referral platform for Optometrist to make referrals directly to the patients’ hospital of choice. We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your hard work in supporting the transition across to this new platform.
One of the features REGO offers is 2-way communication and the ability for hospital to ask for further information from practices. It has come to light that there are currently a number of referrals which have been sent back to optometrists’ practices by various hospitals requesting further information. The reason for the requests varies but some do request further scans/images to be sent. We just wanted to make clear that under the GOS contract you are not contractually obliged to send across any additional images.
The main reason for this communication is to highlight that when a referral is sent back to you, it will appear in your worklist until you have responded, the referral will not be actioned as the hospital are awaiting a response from you. This will cause unnecessary delay for the patient; I would request you check your REGO dashboards regularly (daily) to see if you have any referrals that have been sent back. If there are any that are requesting information that you either don’t have or can’t get, then could you please respond to the hospital stating that you do not have the information they are requesting or add a polite note saying that additional information is not required under the standard referral dataset. This will then allow the hospital to accept the referral and book the patient into any relevant diagnostics clinics.
We plan to run a further report which highlights any outstanding referral sent back to Optometrists that are awaiting a response. We would be grateful if over the next few days if you could check your dashboards and clear down and respond back to any referrals that have been returned to you, so the hospitals can get these referrals booked into the relevant clinics.
Once again thank you for your co-operation in this matter.
Dimple Mehta BSc(Hons)MCOptom Prof Cert Med Ret
NHS England Southeast Speciality Lead for Optometry
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