Scrivens Opticians and Hearing Care has chosen Tiara9 from Clinical Information Systems supplier Ethitec to provide direct appointment booking via the NHS e-Referral Service (e-RS).

Scrivens, which provides NHS funded adult hearing services on behalf of Clinical Commissioning Groups under Any Qualified Provider (AQP) contracts, now offers this service at over 200 sites.

Last year, Tiara9 received certification for use with the NHS e-Referral Service, which replaced Choose and Book to enable GPs to book appointments directly with NHS or AQP organisations.

Development teams at Ethitec and Scrivens worked together to deliver a module in Tiara9 that allows information relating to NHS e-RS bookings made in Tiara9 to be relayed automatically to Scrivens’ Patient Management System.

David Hewitson, IT Director at Scrivens Opticians and Hearing Care, commented: “Ethitec’s solution delivered exactly what we were looking for — an effective way to receive GP referrals through the NHS e-RS, without the disruption of replacing our existing internal diary system.”

The solution boosts efficiency by removing the need for additional clerical work and, as a result, avoids transcription errors that may arise from copying appointments from a separate NHS e-RS system to the PMS manually.

Simon Taylor, Managing Director at Ethitec, commented: “We’re delighted to be working with Scrivens to enable access to NHS e-RS through Tiara9 and we look forward to supporting Scrivens in improving their services to the NHS as an AQP.