BMA annual meeting: The BMA will lobby for the abolition of referral management systems

The BMA has been called on by its members to lobby for the abolition of referral management systems.

Delegates at the BMA’s annual representative meeting in Bournemouth on 26 June voted in favour of a motion which also called for the BMA to publicise “tick box referral management systems as rationing policies.”

The motion, which was proposed by consultant Phil De Warren-Penny, noted with concern that “many clinical commissioning groups operate referral management systems to constrain referrals of patients to acute care,” and said that the systems “have the potential to undermine shared decision making and to harm patients by delaying their management.”

De Warren-Penny said, “The increasing use of referral management system schemes undermines the apparent transformation in the doctor-patient relationship over the past decade. The blanket application of these policies harms patients and those who fall outside the narrow confines of neatly drawn up care pathways are left behind, are left to wait, are referred.”

He added, “Calling this rationing, which is what it is, actually empowers both us and our patients.”

Earlier this year an investigation by The BMJ found that two fifths of CCGs use a referral management system of some kind, despite previous evidence casting doubt on the effectiveness of such systems.1