Categorisation of Referral
The Department will periodically contact patients waiting for an outpatient clinic appointment via SMS, with a link to an electronic form. This is part of routine waitlist auditing to ensure patient details are up to date. If you receive this SMS, please update your details.
After receiving a valid referral from a health professional, advice is provided on the patient's category depending on the urgency of their condition and they are placed on the outpatient waiting list.
Clinical urgency categories have been defined for use in Outpatient Services undertaken in THS facilities – allocation of the clinical urgency category requires the fulfilment of ALL criteria listed for that category:
Category 1 |
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Category 2 |
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Category 3 |
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If a patient does not fulfil all criteria for Category 1, then the patient is allocated Category 2 status.If a patient does not fulfil all criteria for Category 2, then the patient is allocated Category 3 status. The category system ensures that all patients are seen in order of priority. There are three urgency categories, where 1 is most urgent and 3 is least urgent.