Getting GP referrals to the right practitioner, without the paperwork

Sounds like you if

• Referrals or enquiries are sorted by hand, by a small team sharing the job
• Each one has to reach the right person among several services or specialists
• Your records live in a system you don't want to move away from
• The people you serve need a calm, careful experience, and confidentiality matters

The challenge

Referrals reach the practice from GPs. A team of psychiatrists, psychotherapists and therapists covers different needs, including ADHD, depression, anxiety and occupational health, so each referral has to find the most appropriate practitioner.

Two administrators, neither medically trained, shared that job by hand. With the work split between them, things could be missed or forgotten, patients waited longer to start, and collating and typing up assessment answers took hours every week.

The brief

Manage incoming referrals, get each patient to the most appropriate practitioner, and speed up delivery.

Two conditions shaped it. Patient records stay in Semble, the practice's clinical system, with no data migration and nothing new for the clinical team to learn. And confidentiality and a careful, sensitive experience for patients mattered as much as speed.

What we built together

1. Learned how the practice works

   Its patient pathways, the admin team's habits, and what its existing systems could already do.

2. Put the assessments online

   Standard clinical questionnaires the practice uses, for ADHD, depression, PTSD and personality, alongside assessments written by the practice's lead psychiatrist, who has more than 40 years in practice. Built in GoHighLevel, worded and laid out with people who may be anxious in mind.

3. Automated what happens next

   Each completed assessment produces a report ready to upload to the patient's record in Semble, and sets off the next steps for the practitioner and the patient.

4. Embedded it with the admin team

   Training and support until the new process was simply how the work gets done.

What it took

• 2 to 3 months, including training and embedding with the admin team. It was a significant piece of work, because patient confidentiality and a sensitive experience came first.
• No data migration: Semble stays the patient record, so the clinical team kept the system they know.
• AI sped up the build, and it makes no clinical decisions. The questionnaires are standard or written by the lead psychiatrist, and clinicians make every clinical judgement.

What changed

• The admin team no longer collate and type up assessment answers: 3 to 4 hours saved a week each, with fewer mistakes and better accuracy.
• Getting from referral to the right practitioner is quicker and easier, for patients and for the team.
• Revenue in the services the new process covers is up 15%.