NHS Booking and Referral Standard
An interoperability standard between patient record systems that enables booking and referral information to be sent between NHS healthcare system providers quickly, safely and in a format that is useful to clinicians.
About this standard
- Publisher
- NHS England
- Also known as
- Also known as BaRS.
- Reference code
- DAPB4060 Amd 99-2021
- Publication date
- 13/04/2023
- Status
- Active
Show definitions of statuses
Active. Active standards are stable, maintained and have been approved, assured or endorsed for use by qualified bodies.
Deprecated Deprecated standards are available for use and are maintained, but are being phased out, so new functionality will not be added.
Retired standards Retired standards are not being maintained or supported and should not be used.
- Standard type
- Information standards
- Technical standards and specifications
Show definitions of standard types
Collections. A Collection is a systematic gathering of a specified selection of data or information for a particular stated purpose from existing records held within health and care systems and electronic devices.
Extractions. An extraction is a type of collection that is pulled from an operational system by the data controller and transmitted to the receiver without additional processing or transcription by the sender.
Information standards. Information standards are agreed ways of doing something, written down as a set of precise criteria so they can be used as rules, guidelines, or definitions.
Technical Standards and specifications. Technical standards and specifications specify how to make information available technically including how the data is structured and transported.
- Contact point
- Please state ‘Booking and Referral Standard’ in the subject line.
Link to standard
- Documentation
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- Applies to
- NHS 111/clinical assessment services (CAS)
- Accident and Emergency departments (A&E)
- Urgent Treatment Centres (UTC)
- Impacts on
- Implementation of this information standard impacts all health IT systems suppliers providing systems to the above providers; suppliers should work with their customers to determine necessary changes.
- Effective from
- 15/04/2023
Topics and care settings
- Topic
- Appointment / scheduling
- Data definitions and terminologies
- HL7
- Interoperability
- Referrals
- Care setting
- Hospital
- Urgent and Emergency Care
Dependencies and related standards
- Dependencies
- Related standards
Review Information
- Scope
- NHS Services
- Sponsor
Radhika Rangaraju, Director of e-Referral Service and Digital, Diagnostics Capability, NHS England
- Senior Responsible Officer
Radhika Rangaraju, Director of e-Referral Service and Digital, Diagnostics Capability, NHS England
- Business Lead
- Will Jager, Lead Delivery Manager, NHS England
- Approval date
- 23/03/2023
Legal basis and endorsements
- Legal authority
Section 250 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012
This information standard is published under section 250 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012
- Collaborating Organisations
- The BaRS has been endorsed by the NHS England Architectural Board.
- The Professional Record and Standards Body (PRSB) has partnered the early development of the BaRS, in particular the application of BaRS from any 111 sending system.
More information
The creation of NHS Booking and Referral Standard (BaRS) delivers the strategic interoperability to facilitate a booking, and for any associated referral information to be shared between a sending organisation such as an NHS 111 Provider, and a receiving organisation such as an Emergency Department.
BaRS is therefore an interoperability standard between patient record systems that enables booking and referral information to be sent between NHS healthcare system providers quickly, safely and in a format that is useful to clinicians.
Based on use cases and implementation of BaRS at different organisation types it is anticipated that there will be the need to amend the standard further down the line to include and support other new use cases.
Fixing a specific conformance date for the totality of BaRS is not feasible as the scope of the standard will expand over time as new use cases for its application are requested and subsequently created by the BaRS development team. Therefore, conformance will be monitored in line with the review dates and/or any formal change to the Information Standard.
Post-implementation review dates of 31 March 2024 (initial review) and 31 March 2025 (intermediate review) have been set.
Page last updated: 23 August 2024