Blog | Booking and Referrals Standard (BaRS) is live

As NHS England rolls out its new Booking and Referrals Standard (BaRS), we spoke with Kevin Noble, Director of Professional Services, to explore what this change means for community pharmacies and how they can prepare.

What is BaRS and what does it mean for pharmacies?

BaRS enables the quick and secure sharing of patient information between different healthcare settings in a standardised format.

This means pharmacies will eventually be able to exchange information across any BaRS compliant systems to support the safe and effective delivery of care. Interoperability between systems will allow GP practices and pharmacies to one day communicate with each other digitally, streamlining collaborative working and avoiding the need for phone calls.

What developments have taken place within PharmOutcomes to support BaRS?

In our PharmOutcomes® solution, we’ve now adopted BaRS for all referrals that are sent out by GP practice for Pharmacy First.

This will allow our customers to both send and receive information with other healthcare professionals that are using different IT solutions.

One current example of this is how referrals from NHS 111 or GP practices appear directly in the services page of PharmOutcomes.

How will BaRS change my user experience for PharmOutcomes?

We’ve been working to fully integrate BaRS capabilities for our PharmOutcomes customers, and we’re pleased to share that the first phase of this project is now complete.

Since PharmOutcomes has long been managing referrals within the workflow, the shift to BaRS will not alter the experience for our customers, but positions us well to deliver the future benefits that BaRS offers.

How does EMIS facilitate referrals to pharmacies with Local Services?

Local Services provides an integrated referral solution within EMIS Web® for both primary and community care, enabling GP practices to send referrals to community pharmacies for services like Pharmacy First, Hypertension Case Finding, and the national contraception service, with all referrals appearing in the PharmOutcomes workflow.

How does EMIS facilitate referrals to pharmacies with PharmRefer?

PharmRefer, a standalone option for users without EMIS Web, supports BaRS compliant referrals for Pharmacy First services from GP practices or Urgent Treatment Centres to pharmacies. Community pharmacies will also receive NHS 111 call centre referrals directly into their PharmOutcomes workflow on the services page.

How do Local Services and PharmRefer work?

Both Local Services and PharmRefer offer a patient triage feature to be used at the point of referral to identify patient eligibility for support via Pharmacy First. The triage function asks relevant questions to ensure those not suitable for support at pharmacies do not get referred. The product now includes questions around the seven common conditions (sinusitis, sore throat, earache, infected insect bite, impetigo, shingles and uncomplicated UTI's), allowing pharmacies to receive more referrals.

How does EMIS facilitate referrals to pharmacies from hospitals?

In PharmOutcomes, we can receive inbound messages to workflow from hospital sites for both the Discharge Medicines Service and Smoking Cessation Services. These referrals are mostly generated by hospital systems, but we can still present these in our workflow for sites using the system.

The approach we have adopted to referral management means that pharmacies using our solution can manage all in bound referrals in a consistent way using the same approach for all referrals received, no matter how the referral messages are sent.

To find out more about our solutions for community pharmacy click here. If you have any questions about BaRS integration that haven't been answered above, please complete the contact form below to speak with one of our team.

About the author

Kevin Noble

Specialist sales team leader

Having been a registered community pharmacist for nearly 40 years, Kevin began his career as a community pharmacist contractor in 1986. After owning and managing two pharmacies for 15 years, he took on a new and dedicated key role as NHS Community Pharmacy Professional Advisor for Isle of Wight, Hampshire, Portsmouth, and Southampton. In 2009, he co-founded Pinnacle Health Partnership LLP, and was one of the two managing partners. In March 2020, the partnership became part of the EMIS group, overseeing the management of todays market-leading system, PharmOutcomes/Outcomes4Health.