Henry Maas, head of new initiatives at Consultant Connect, explains why referral triage needs to move centre stage.
NHS waiting lists dominate the national conversation – but still remain stubbornly high. As of August, almost half of patients on waiting lists have received no care since their initial GP referral.
Long waiting times lead to unnecessary anxiety for patients. In many cases, they’ve been on a waiting list for so long that by the time a consultant sees them, their symptoms have resolved or changed, or they simply no longer need the appointment.
But there is a quiet fix – referral triage and validation – and it’s helping trusts take back control. Done well, it’s one of the most effective and efficient ways to reduce pressure on secondary care and get patients to the right outcome faster.
Streamlining outpatient lists
When a GP refers a patient to hospital, that referral often enters a queue, even when it might be better handled elsewhere. Referral triage allows consultants to review each case to check clinical appropriateness, urgency, and determine the appropriate setting for a patient to be managed. That means patients who don’t need hospital care can be treated in the community, within primary care or directed straight to diagnostics or other services.
This streamlines outpatient lists and protects clinical time for those who truly need it. Working with more than 20 trusts across the NHS, our data shows that on average, 38% of referrals triaged can be returned to primary care with detailed management plans or safely redirected to more appropriate care pathways. That’s almost four in ten patients avoiding an unnecessary hospital appointment – and instead receiving care that’s faster, closer to home, and better suited to their needs.
So why isn’t clinical referral triage and validation already standard practice? In many places, it comes down to consultant capacity. Triage takes time and headspace – and with hospital teams already under pressure, it’s hard to find either. But today, technology has made this challenge far easier to solve.
Consultant Connect’s National Consultant Network provides local trusts with support from consultants working remotely in other areas during their non-NHS hours. These consultants act as an extension of the existing team, following local pathways, protocols and supporting the local team.
The network provides extra capacity when it’s needed most. It is essentially clinical capacity on demand. It gives trusts the ability to scale triage support up or down within 72 hours. It’s clinically safe and efficient.
The model is particularly valuable for high-demand specialities or in smaller departments where there simply aren’t enough hands to manage growing referral volumes. Instead of the backlog just growing, trusts can bring in targeted help to triage and validate referrals at pace.
Immediate benefits
For patients, the benefits are immediate. Referral triage leads to faster decisions, and patients are sent to the right care first time. This smoother journey reduces frustration, delays and duplication. And importantly, triage supports greater clinical fairness. It ensures patients with the greatest need are prioritised.
In one Midlands trust, remote consultants triaged more than 1,000 neurology referrals within eight weeks and cut the waiting list in half. Many patients were redirected to diagnostics or returned to primary care with guidance. At a national level, more than 230,000 people are currently waiting for neurology appointments, with an average wait of 17 weeks. Interventions like this have the power to make a significant impact.
Referral triage isn’t a temporary fix or sticking plaster. It’s a practical, proven model that can be embedded into everyday care across the NHS. Triaging makes a huge difference when done in real time – it enables local consultants to concentrate on delivering clinics and treating patients, at the same time as providing GPs with better advice to manage patients in primary care. To succeed, it needs to be treated as core infrastructure, not an optional extra.
What’s needed now is sustained funding to ensure referral triage is available to every trust that needs it. The NHS doesn’t have time to waste. Referral triage is one of the most scalable tools we have and it’s time to move it to the centre of the recovery plan.
