Use case for referral to single point of access for mental health

Brief description

A patient is referred for mental health treatment via a single point of access (SPA). Where the relevant patient information has not been included with the referral form, the SPA team will have access to the patient’s GP record to ensure that the patient’s history is included in the referral. This will save time and resources of requesting this from the patient’s GP.

Use case justification

Clinical and administration:

• Access to accurate information at the point of care reducing the opportunity for errors to occur.
• Reduction in time wasted, collecting and collating information.
• Reduction in time wasted, manually updating IT systems.
• Reducing the paper flow through departments/organisations by utilising the system workflow to manage tasks using staff time efficiently.

Patient-focused:

• Security of patient information is maintained and improved through the reduction of paper-based ‘patient identifiable documents’ in use within departments.
• Increased patient safety due to the reduction in manual transcription errors.
• Better patient experience as there is less likely to be a delay in referral.

Primary actors

• Single Point of Access (SPA) team
• Paris system
• GP Connect
• GP clinical system

Secondary actors

• Patient

Triggers

• Patient is referred to mental health services using the Single Point of Access services and the relevant patient information has not been included in the referral form.

Preconditions

• The patient’s details have been verified and entered on the Paris system.
• SPA staff have the correct/appropriate system access rights.
• The patient’s GP has agreed to share patient information via GP Connect.
• The patient allows this shared information to be viewed/used by GP staff.
• Electronic interactions between Paris system/GP Connect/GP clinical system have been correctly configured.

Postconditions

• On success:
  • Clinical information is imported and recorded against the local patient record.
• Guaranteed:
  • All the relevant available information on the patient’s medical history has been viewable on the Paris system used by the Single Point of Access team.

Basic flow with alternative and exception flows

Step	Description
Step 1	Patient is referred to mental health via the Single Point of Access process
Step 2	Information on patient history is missing from referral.
Step 3	The SPA team log into their usual system.
Step 4	SPA admin searches for patient via NHS Number.
Step 5	The Paris system will request the patient’s relevant sections of the patient’s record that are held in the patient's registered GP practice system via the GP Connect service.
Step 6	GP Connect and the GP practice system will check that the community organisation is allowed access to the data and that the patient has not objected to their data being shared.
Step 7	GP clinical system provides all relevant requested sections including: Medications Current and historic Reasons for being given medication Anti-depressants that patient is on/been on – past medications. Plus GP Summary
Step 8	The Paris system imports the all information supplied from the GP practice. This data is now available for clinicians to review and maintain.
Step 9	The medical data retrieved by the SPA team from other sources is manually added to the community system.
Alternative path
Step 6a	Where there are not the appropriate permissions to share the data, GP Connect returns an error message saying the information cannot be returned. The SPA team will retrieve the information using the SCR, Leeds Care Record and direct requests to the GP practice. They will then manually enter the data.