About this Toolkit

RefGuide provides key service and condition-specific referral information for NHS Tayside services. Achieved by consensus to provide clear, point of need information to support referrals into secondary care services.

RefGuide is primarily a resource for Primary Care referrers, to help them navigate the huge array of services and support them in making referrals to those services.

Specialists and Services, to help them provide consensus guidance and directions to help Primary Care referrers make the best use of their service.

Please contact tay.referralguidance@nhs.scot with user feedback and comments.

All feedback is directed to the RefGuide Team, reviewed, and actioned as appropriate. With a formal process is in place for responding to and acting on feedback or complaints.

This toolkit does not include any medical devices.

If future developments introduce medical device components, appropriate regulatory assessment (including UK CA marking, manufacturer details, and instructions for use) will be completed with guidance from the RDS Team and InnoScot Health.

RefGuide does not process or store person-identifiable data.
It is a professional resource designed for primary care referrers—primarily General Practitioners—to access referral guidance.

Should future developments require the processing or storage of person-identifiable data, the Information Governance Department will be consulted to develop an appropriate privacy statement in compliance with NHS data protection standards.

Key roles

• Authors: Service Leads or designated service contacts responsible for drafting referral guidance.
• Reviewers: Referral Advisors who collaborate with services to reach consensus.
• Approvers: GP Subcommittee and Medicine Advisory Group (MAG), where guidance requires clinical oversight or references medicine.

Clinical review at publication

Referral guidance is reviewed collaboratively by Referral Advisors and the relevant services. The GP Subcommittee and MAG provide formal clinical oversight and approval prior to publication.

Review and updating arrangements

All content is reviewed a standard of every two years unless specified by the service. Automated RDS alerts notify the RefGuide Team, who contact authors three months prior to the review date. Updated guidance is re-reviewed by Referral Advisors and, if clinical or GP-impacting changes occur, it is processed through the full governance pathway.

Systematic sourcing and evidence evaluation

Many pathways are derived directly from national sources, including the Centre for Sustainable Delivery, SIGN, and Scottish Cancer Guidelines. Where applicable, original sources are linked within the pathway.

Local pathways are developed collaboratively between Primary and Secondary Care services. Consensus-based to ensure clinical appropriateness and alignment with current best practice and subject to governance and quality assurance by the GP Subcommittee and MAG.

All content has been migrated from the original site and approved through the established RefGuide governance process.

Toolkit approval was granted by the Integration Workstream and the Planned Care Programme Board, which serves as the governing body for RefGuide.

The GP Subcommittee continues to review and approve new or updated guidance, with MAG involvement where appropriate (if content referencing medicines)

The administrator maintains governance tracking to ensure all guidance has been reviewed and approved through the appropriate channels.

Risk Mitigation

All referral guidance is reviewed by clinical experts to ensure patient safety. GP Subcommittee and MAG approvals serve as key safeguards.

Testing

Functional, usability, and user acceptance testing were conducted in October 2025 with a representative group of NHS Tayside stakeholders. Feedback was used to refine the content format and improve usability.

All RefGuide content complies with copyright legislation. Permissions for external content are obtained where required.

Pixabay Images: Used under the Pixabay License, permitting free use for both commercial and non-commercial purposes without author attribution.

Flaticon Images: Used under a licence paid for by Tactuum, the software provider of the RDS platform.

New content will be checked for accessibility in line with relevant RDS standard operating procedure and tested using Wave accessibility tool.

Content migrated from our original platform in pdf format may not meet web accessibility standards but will be updated as and when content is reviewed.

If pages are not accessible, they are locked to the accessible to NHS Tayside Staffnet and out with the control of the RefGuide Team.

If a page is locked and you would like to access the link and it is not accessible, contact tay.referralguidance@nhs.scot and the RefGuide team can access the appropriate service to request the link be changed.