6 Features of a Referral Management System to Improve Productivity in Cancer Pathways
Ensuring patients enter their pathway efficiently is critical to delivering timely and effective care, especially for those with suspected or confirmed cancer. But many oncology referrals are still handled through emails, phone calls, paper forms, or even faxes, leading to missing details, miscommunication, and administrative bottlenecks, all ultimately delaying patient care.
With cancer pathway productivity a key NHS priority for 2025/26, improving how referrals are managed becomes even more pertinent. A robust referral management system—or eReferral platform—can help streamline a huge part of cancer pathways by ensuring referrals are structured, accurate, and easy to triage, thereby reducing delays and ensuring patients reach the right services as quickly as possible.
We’ve identified 6 essential features that make a referral management system effective for cancer pathways. Below, we explore these 6 features, along with video examples to show some in action.
1. Structured oncology referral forms
Everything starts with how the referral comes in. If the information is incomplete or unclear, decisions can’t be made, leading to frustrating and time-consuming back-and-forths to track down missing details.
A referral management system (RMS) should eliminate this problem by ensuring every referral contains the right information upfront, making triage, specialist allocation, and multidisciplinary team (MDT) preparation faster and more efficient.
Key features that drive high-quality referrals include:
Mandated fields to capture minimum datasets.
Contextual diagnosis-specific protocols that prompt referrers to provide the right details (e.g., following up with a phone call, including specific test results, etc.).
Standardised, coded clinical information (e.g., SNOMED-CT) for better interoperability and data accuracy.
The video below demonstrates a structured oncology referral form designed to ensure recipients receive all the essential patient information needed to make quick and safe clinical decisions. It also highlights contextual diagnosis-specific protocols, which dynamically adjust based on the selected primary diagnosis, guiding referrers with next steps and information on the patient pathway.
The required information and protocols can vary between organisations, making it essential for referral forms to be tailored to the specific needs of each healthcare provider. This adaptability ensures that referrals are both clinically relevant and operationally efficient, leading us to the next key feature of an effective RMS.
2. Tailored and localised oncology referral workflows
Cancer pathways are highly specialised, so a good RMS adapts to the specific needs of different teams and locations. Instead of forcing teams to adjust their workflows to fit the RMS, the system should fit around how oncology teams work. For example, depending on the outcome of an oncology referral triage, the system could:
Auto-assign patients to relevant MDTs.
Trigger the booking of diagnostics and procedures.
Book a clinic appointment.
3. End-to-end referral visibility and governance
When it’s a referral for suspected or confirmed cancer, knowing what is happening at every stage is critical. An effective oncology RMS provides full visibility by tracking every action with timestamps, referral status, and triage decisions. This helps to improve governance and auditability across the referral process.
4. Integration with existing systems
A RMS should not exist in isolation; it should integrate with existing hospital systems to help reduce the administrative burden and improve the flow of information across teams and locations.
With Pathpoint, for example, key integrations include:
NHS Login for streamlined account creation and user validation.
NHS Personal Demographics Service (PDS) to autopopulate patient details for accuracy and time savings.
NHS e-Referral Service (eRS) to pull referrals directly into the system for triage.
5. Bidirectional communication
Efficient communication is everything with oncology referrals, so an effective RMS should optimise communication with, for example:
Two-way asynchronous messaging between referrers and recipients for clarification and additional details.
Automated SMS and email notifications to keep teams updated on referral progress and urgent cases.
Instead of calling to chase information and hoping someone picks up, the RMS keeps everything in one place. Timestamps, full referral details, referrer names, and entire communication threads are stored securely and easily accessible for both referrers and internal teams.
The video below demonstrates two-way asynchronous messaging, enabling referrers and recipients to communicate securely and efficiently. The message is added directly alongside the full referral, ensuring that all relevant details are included for clearer context and more informed decision-making.
6. Digital patient engagement
Finally, engaging patients in their care can bring significant advantages, not just in improving the patient’s journey through their cancer pathway but also by providing clinicians with valuable data to make more informed treatment decisions.
For example, a good RMS can:
Send digital questionnaires before appointments to collect key information in advance.
Schedule follow-up questionnaires to track symptoms and quality-of-life metrics over time.
The video below showcases a digital patient questionnaire designed to collect comprehensive patient information so clinicians can spend less time gathering details and more time focusing on patient care.
These six features of a referral management system are essential for managing the complexity of cancer pathways and driving productivity improvements by:
Eliminating inefficiencies like incomplete referrals and fragmented communication.
Improving the quality and accuracy of information, enabling faster triage and better decision-making.
Enhancing governance, accountability, and collaboration across multidisciplinary teams.
