Definitions of key terms

The Booking and Referral Standard (BaRS) deals with 'bookings' and 'referrals' as they relate to a patient's journey. In the context of BaRS, we use these terms to mean the following:

Booking

Booking is the administrative function of reserving time-based capacity at a service provider. It can take one of two forms:

• the traditional appointment at a specified time
• a timeframe within which the patient can expect to be seen, based on their assessed clinical severity (acuity) and capacity at the service

Booking consists of the sender and receiver roles

• the sender is the service assessing the patient and wishing to send them to another service
• the receiver is the service the sender wishes to make the booking with

When a booking is made in conjunction with a referral, the receiving service must link the booking and referral together.

Referral

A referral is a request for a care service, other than a specific diagnostic investigation or diagnostic procedure, to be provided for a patient.

The information included in the referral is primarily clinical and must allow the receiver to understand the reason for referral and detail of assessment by the sending service. This is key for patient care and experience as the patient transitions between services.

The complete information transmitted in the referral depends on the use case. This is informed by user research and endorsed by specialist bodies in those fields.