Online Referral Form

When a patient is admitted to the hospital, the Discharge Liaison Officer or Ward Nurse can complete an online referral form to identify the support and care a person may require, enabling them to be discharged from the hospital.

Using one form, teams can create multiple referrals sent to a variety of partnering Local Authority services, health and social care providers and third sector organisations based on the person's level of need.

Discharge Liaison Officers will be able to make referrals to services including home from hospital services, food support, help with benefits, mental health, housing, and other support groups. These services are delivered by a range of Local Authorities, health and social care providers and third sector partners.

The online referral form has four sections (each of these is configurable):

• About You (the person).

• Support Needed.

• About Referrer

• Consent

Figure 1: Accessing the Discharge service referral form

Section One - About You:

In this section, the referrer will be asked to provide the following information (this can be designed as per customer requirements. Please note customers can request that some fields are made mandatory and must be completed to submit the referral.)

Common fields on the forms may be to include:

• Patient's first name.

• Patient's Last name.

• NHS Number.

• Date of birth.

• Do you have a permanent address?

• If yes is selected, the person will be asked to enter the home address and search for the address.
• If no is selected, the patient will be asked to provide a correspondence address.

• Email address.

• Contact number.

• Do you have any communication support needs?

• Is there someone who helps or supports you (e.g., a partner, family member or friend)?

• Expected discharge date.

Section Two – Support Needed:

In this section, the person and referrer can discuss the level of support required. If the person does not require any support, the referrer can continue to the next page of the referral form.

If the person would like support, by selecting 'yes', the following fields will appear.

Figure 2: Section two - support needed

The first section enables the selection of discharge dependent services. Please note that it is possible to select more than one service on the online form. Each box ticked will create a separate referral for that service.

When the referrer selects continue, further information will be required for each service that has been selected.

Section Three – About Referrer:

This section is to provide the referrer contact details as follows:

• Referrer's first name

• Referrer's last name

• Referrer's email

• Referrer's contact number

• Organisation

• Hospital ward.

If a referrer has submitted this referral form previously, their referrer details will be prefilled so that the referrer will not need to complete these fields each time they complete the form.

Section four - Consent:

In this section, the patient, their next of kin or the professional can either give or decline consent to organisations at the Multi-agency Referral Hub to share their personal information.

The person will also be asked if they would like a copy of their referral. Once the referral is complete select the 'Submit Referral' button.

Figure 3: 'Submit Referral' button

NHS Mini Spine check:

When the referrer clicks on ‘Submit Referral’, RIVIAM will try and match the patient demographics and NHS number to details on NHS Mini Spine. If the NHS number and demographics match, no further action is required. If the NHS number and demographics do not match, a pop-up window will appear as follows:

Figure 4: NHS Spine check pop-up box

The referrer can close the window and check the patient's details again on the referral form. Alternatively, the referrer can continue to submit the referral form anyway.

Confirmation page:

After the form has been submitted, a referral confirmation page will appear. The referrer will see a list of the referrals that have been created based on the responses completed on the RIVIAM Hospital Digital Discharge Service referral form.

If there are multiple referrals for the same person, the referral number will be the same with sequential numbers at the end of the referral reference:

Figure 5: Confirmation page

The referrer will also be able to see which service provider (pod) the referral has been referred to and which service line has been requested.

Submitting another referral for the same person:

If during the Discharge process, it is discovered that services from another partnering organisation are required, it is possible to create another referral for the same person and RIVIAM will auto-add these to the patient’s details on the Discharge dashboard.

RIVIAM Hospital Digital Discharge Service User guide RIVIAM Digital Care © Copyright 2023 All rights reserved.