Templates for responding to Advice and Guidance (A&G) requests for seven common dermatological conditions are now available, helping to enhance communication between primary and secondary care and reduce unnecessary delays.
The new outpatient resources – developed by GIRFT with the British Association of Dermatologists (BAD) – are part of a new dermatology A&G toolkit for secondary care clinicians, now available on the GIRFT FutureNHS workspace.
GIRFT brought together a working group of clinicians from primary and secondary care to develop the templates, to ensure they are helpful to both the specialists using them and the GPs receiving them.
Nick Levell, GIRFT’s clinical lead for dermatology and a consultant dermatologist at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, led on the development, along with Carolyn Charman, clinical vice president of the BAD.
“The NHS has seen major changes to outpatient services in recent years, accelerated by adopting remote consultations and telemedicine during the pandemic. We hope these templates will support GPs to provide optimum support to patients closer to home, aided by guidance from specialist dermatologists, in turn supporting the NHS to minimise unnecessary and inefficient outpatient activity.”
A&G, also known as Specialist Advice Services, allows GPs to obtain advice from specialists in secondary care, which means patients get advice on their suspected condition more quickly than waiting to see a specialist in the outpatient department.
The GIRFT toolkit offers tips on making optimal use of A&G and includes templates which can be adapted in response to A&G requests for seven common dermatological conditions, including atopic eczema (age specific advice), psoriasis and benign skin lesions.
The colour-coded templates aim to improve the timeliness and quality of responses back to GPs, allowing a personalised response which is tailored to the patient’s presentation, with the most important information clearly highlighted and scope for local processes and requirements to be flagged.
The templates for dermatology conditions are the third in a series GIRFT is working on, with A&G templates for urology and A&G templates for CYP conditions already available and others for ENT and gynaecology also being developed.
