Guidance for making an NHS referral

We empower clinicians to manage patients locally with the support of our expert team.

How to make a referral

It’s important that you understand what type of referral you want to make.

Accelerate currently provides two main referral types:

• Wounds
• Lymphoedema.

As specialists in the treatment of both wounds and lymphoedema, our expert community team provide care to patients:

• In our Clinic at Mare Street, Hackney
• Community Leg Ulcer Clinics
• At home (Tower Hamlets housebound residents only)

It is important that the patient’s medical history and if possible, photographs of the problem area, are shared with our team for us to perform a full assessment and provide the best possible care to the patient.

Click here and then the relevant box to make your referral

*In Northeast London, General Practices have access to each referral template in the clinical system they currently use to be auto populated with the required information.

Clinical Criteria

The referral forms contain all the clinical criteria and exclusions that match the area you are referring your patient from. Once you select your area on the referral form this information will appear to guide you.

 

Who can Refer?

Any health care professional can refer to our service. Please note, we do not accept NHS self-referrals.

 

 

Making a referral

Once you have started your referral, please ensure to complete all mandatory fields as this is essential for us to process your referral. All questions that contain a * are mandatory and you will not be able to submit your referral without completing these.

The form is simple and straightforward to complete, but if you have questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us at or email us at accelerate@acceleratecic.com .

 

Submitting your Referral

Once you submit your referral, we will ensure to provide the following to all health care professional and patients:

• Comprehensive support for health care professionals and patients dealing with wound care and lymphoedema, with a strong focus on personalised, specialist-led treatment.
• Collaboration with Professionals
• Clear communication and feedback from Accelerate’s team
• A collaborative approach to patient care
• Access to specialist treatment options
• Tailored self-management plans 

Other considerations when making your referral

Early Intervention Pathways

Please follow our Early Intervention Pathways as and when required for patient care. We have developed these to assist healthcare professionals in the early care of patients that exhibit wounds or lymphoedema. This would allow you to treat patients before referring them to our services.

Download Lymphoedema Early Intervention Pathway

Downlaod Wound Early Intervention Pathway (Lower Limb only)

Appointment Waiting Times

We have a robust triage process to ensure that all urgent patients are seen as soon as possible. We aim to see urgent patients within 4 to 8 weeks of receiving the referral and routine patients after 8 weeks. It is important to note that we are currently experiencing a high demand for our services, and this may influence patient waiting times.

Discharge criteria

• Patients who are stable/healed and can self-manage their condition with support and necessary prescriptions from their GP.
• Patients whose needs are being met by their primary and/or social care providers.
• When a patient chooses to decline care

Once patients are discharged, we will provide a discharge letter to the GP and any relevant local clinicians outlining recommendations for after care.

Did Not Attend (DNA) Policy

We hold a clear Did Not Attend Policy at Accelerate. A DNA is recorded when a patient:

• Fails to attend a scheduled appointment without informing Accelerate
• Cancels with less than 24 hours ‘notice

The following consequences apply:

• Initial Assessment (1^st Appointment): 1 DNA results in automatic discharge
• Review Appointment: 2 consecutive DNAs result in automatic discharge

Once a patient is discharged due to not attending their appointment, they will need to be re-referred to our service.

Additional prescribing information for GPs and District Nurses

A wide range of compression products are now available on FP10. However, the EMIS system does not currently support the use of PIP codes for made-to-measure items. Therefore, you must rely on made to measure forms provided by suppliers.

For clinicians using the Accelerate Dressing Optimisation Scheme to order wound care products, please ensure you check the Click website first to determine if the item is available for direct ordering before using alternative prescribing routes.

Shared care approach

For some patients we may need to share care with local services.  This plan will be agreed with the patient and local services.

Provision of pain relief

Pain management and provision of pain medication remain the remit of the patient’s local GP.  We will liaise as required with the GP to provide information to help them optimise pain management for patients.

Antibiotic provision

• If infection is suspected the following will happen:
  • Clincians will swab the wound in line with national and international guidance
  • As we do not have the facility to process clinical samples, the swab will be given to the patient to take to GP for local processing (Following local infection control guidance) . This ensures the results are reported within the GP records.

All relevant clinical information will be provided for the GP to aid clinical decision making

Emollients and Topical Steroid Creams/Ointments

If emollients or topical steroids are clinically indicated, a prescription will be requested from the GP, and the patient is expected to bring the required treatment to their appointments. Prescribing remains the clinical decision of the prescriber. We can only advise.

Please call 020 3819 6022 if you have any other queries.