Frequently Asked Questions

What do I have to provide in a standard referral?
Standard referral information to be included in all referrals can be found at Refer Your Patient.

What are the Clinical Prioritisation Criteria (CPC)?
CPC are state-wide clinical decision support tools that have been designed for use by referring practitioners when referring into the Queensland public hospital system and Queensland public specialist outpatient services.

They indicate the likely triage category of clinical conditions and the essential referral information that must be included in any referral.

They can be found on Gold Coast Health’s Refer Your Patient website.

What do I have to do when sending a referral?
When referring your patients to Gold Coast Health ensure that you check the CPC and include the standard and essential information as shown at Refer Your Patient website. GPs using Smart Referrals will have all these requirements pre-filled or prompted for in the referral platform.

How much information is required when sending a referral? (e.g. Examinations, findings, tests etc.)
Any information relevant to the referring problem should be included. It is important to select only pertinent information for the referral; there have been examples of referrals exceeding 100 pages being received where “select all” has been chosen. Please carefully curate your referrals to include only relevant information and essential information.

My referral was returned. Am I required to send back only missing/additional information, or will I have to resend a new referral?
It will be necessary for you to resend a new referral, containing all the information required. This is the safest and best way to ensure patient safety and timely clinical care. If using Smart Referrals you can copy the existing referral and include the missing/additional information.

What if the investigations were carried out at a previous hospital or ED attendance?
Please obtain and include previous hospital and ED investigations in the referral where possible.

What if I am unable to provide a mandatory test result due to locality or availability of the test?
You can make note of this in a free text field in the referral. Please mark this clearly as the referral may be returned as incomplete if this is not indicated.