GP Practice Standard Operating Procedures

The GP Practice has a standard practice regarding Patient referrals when typically establishing commissioned services. This will include patient permission to be referred to another service and medical records updated within the GP Practice Patient Record. There are two key aspects to acknowledge and record as part of the information governance arrangements;

1) Patient grants permission to be referred to another service.

2) Patient grants permission for relevant information to be passed to the service provider.

At this stage the patient is being referred to the GP Link Worker which in some settings the GP Link Worker is NHS Grampian employed. In other settings the role of the GP Link Worker may be employed by a commissioned service.

Good practice is for a Patient to have received a person-centred conversation between the healthcare professional and the Patient. The healthcare professional will have identified that the patient would benefit from a non-medical intervention to support social needs. An example of the information shared via SCI Gateway from the GP Practice to the GP Link Worker can be found at Appendix 4.