Tiara9, the appointment management and electronic patient record for allied health professions, has received certification for the NHS e-referral service (e-RS) from the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC). The accreditation follows testing to ensure compatibility with the successor to Choose and Book, which was developed by HSCIC and which launched today.

e-RS enables GPs to book appointments directly in with NHS or Any Qualified Provider (AQP) services using Ethitec’s Tiara9 as their appointment booking system. Frimley Park Hospital was Ethitec’s first site to go live on Choose & Book at the end of last year.

Ethitec’s Managing Director, Simon Taylor, commented: “We are delighted that the new eRS system is now in place, and that Tiara9 continues to enable providers to qualify as AQPs, accepting referrals directly from GPs.

“HSCIC has been committed to the launch of the new e-Referral system and has a clear strategy for developing the service. We expect to expect to be able to release greater functionality to sites over the coming months.”

The NHS Choose & Book service, which eRS replaces, was used to make around 40,000 referrals a day and it is anticipated that take-up will increase significantly due to the more modern architecture of the new system. This ensures greater interconnectivity with other software platforms and more potential for developers to drive new functionality.

e-RS enables patient appointments to be made, changed, cancelled and re-allocated with minimal disruption and maximum efficiency, aiming to reduce patient DNAs (Did Not Attends) by providing greater choice around appointment time and place.

eRS also eliminates much of the paperwork and time lag associated with non-electronic referrals, and the previous Choose & Book system was found to deliver significant improvements to patient experience, according to a 2014 Patient Survey. It is key to the government’s vision of achieving a paperless NHS by 2018.