Self-referral
Another great way of increasing referral and attendance is to provide a self-referral service. This can be set up in different ways, depending on the referral pathway and admin systems in place. Self-referral puts ‘the ball in the patient’s court’ from the beginning and instills self-management from the outset.
These could be:
Paper-based forms in waiting rooms, diabetes clinics, libraries, etc. (a sample of this is available by clicking Sample_Self_Referral_Form) - if you would like assistance designing a version for your own are please contact alison.northern@uhl-tr.nhs.uk for further info
Here are two examples from work in Nottinghamshire 1) Form 2) FP10-style
Since the pandemic the use of QR codes has since a huge increase - here is an example of how this coudl be incorporated into a flyer or on a bannerstand
Web-based contact forms - such as MS Forms - here is an example used for MyDESMOND in Wales
Email
Telephone to local coordination office
Even a web-based self-booking system
Remember that if a patient refers themselves, you will need to get hold of their data either by going back to their GP practice or, more effectively, asking them to collect this data themselves like on the Nottinghamshire example above.
An example of how this could be implemented is:
Direct to patient marketing through press releases, and other marketing ideas
Displaying the DESMOND teams telephone number and email at any occasion
Developing and distributing of a self-referral form in the shape of a prescription through practices, pharmacies and community events
Posters, flyers and campaigns across practices, pharmacies and community events also helped to spread the word
Here is an example Implementation Plan for a pilot of self-referral that you can adapt.
This roll-out saw almost a two-fold increase in self-referrals across the same nine-month period from the previous year in one organisation during the Embedding Diabetes Education feasibility study.