The future of the NHS e-Referral Service

e-RS is a service that is constantly being developed and improved, and we are regularly adding new features based on research and data insights.

Our roadmap,shows what we are working on right now and what we plan to do in the future, but some of these things may change over time.

Find out about changes in our next e-RS update and detailed information on key planned changes.

Thanks to user feedback, the NHS e-Referral Service (e-RS) is continually improving to make it easier, quicker, and more convenient to use. This helps e-RS to support your needs and provide a better user experience for both professional users and their patients. 

Professional users of e-RS can provide suggestions on how to improve the system by submitting a request using our online form. Once the request has been submitted, a copy of the suggestion can be downloaded to a PDF format for future reference. 

All new requirements will be reviewed by the e-RS team approximately every two weeks. 

The outcome of the initial review will then be fed back to the user and will fall into one of three categories with the associated action: 

1. More information required – the user will be contacted by a member of their regional e-RS team to discuss this. 

2. User need accepted - this will be taken forward for future research and development where appropriate. A reference number will be provided to allow tracking of the request and you may be contacted if further information relating to this requirement is needed. 

3. Rejected – the user will be contacted by a member of their regional e-RS team with an explanation on why the suggestion was rejected, for example the user requirement may be met by a training need, rather than a system change request.  

All accepted user needs will be added to the e-RS requirements log and grouped into ‘themes’ of different areas of the system, for example changes to the Directory of Services or Worklists. When any system change is being explored in these areas, all existing user needs will be reviewed and fed into the research process to confirm – or otherwise – their inclusion in the future system development. 

User needs, which have been added to the e-RS requirements log, can be viewed, and voted on. The number of votes on each ‘need’ will be taken in to account when future development work is considered.

If users indicate that they would like to be included in the research process, they will be contacted by the e-RS programme research team when work is underway in the relevant functional area so they can be involved alongside other users.