Booking and Referral Standard from NHS Digital

Written by AlisonFreemantle on Friday 1st July 2022

NHS Digital would like to hear from those in Community Pharmacy

NHS Digital would like to speak to staff working in community pharmacies about the new Booking and Referral Standard (BaRS) to ensure it supports their needs and that of their patients.

BaRS is an inter-operability standard for healthcare IT systems which enables booking and/or referral information to be sent to or from different care providers quickly, safely and in a format that is useful to clinicians.

What is an interoperability standard?

An ‘interoperability standard’ describes a standardised set of rules, that govern the format, language and delivery methods for transferring data or information from any healthcare IT systems to another. In the case of BaRS, it helps a service to send or receive booking and referral information to or from another care provider for the purpose of a patient's ongoing care.

If all care settings adopt the same interoperability standard for sending and receiving referrals, it makes it easier, faster and safer to move patients through their care journey.

If you would like to take part or have any questions, please contact: bookingandreferralstandard@nhs.net