01
The request and the work get collapsed
When a referral is treated as just another case or ticket, the reason for the request, the questions asked and the later operational work share one overloaded record.
Occupational health referrals
Occupational health referral software from request to case work.
A referral is a request for occupational health services. A case is the operational work that follows once that request is accepted. Occentra keeps those records distinct, then connected, so the original questions are not lost inside the clinical activity.
Referral and case
Management referral · RF-18402
Referral
Request for occupational health input
Employee
Jordan Ellis
Maintenance engineer
Triage
Accepted · case opened
Pathway: management referral
Case
Operational work from the accepted referral
Appointment
21 Aug · 11:00
Dr Mira Patel · video
Report
Not started
Referral questions remain attached
The operational problem
Digitising the referral form is not the same as managing the referral.
Management referrals, and other requests for occupational health input, fail more often in the hand-offs than in the form itself. The request arrives incomplete. Triage happens in an inbox. The clinician cannot see the original questions beside the assessment. The report is written, but nobody can see whether the case is waiting on an appointment, a review or a release.
02
Triage depends on informal knowledge
Completeness, urgency, pathway and whether the request should be accepted or declined are often judged in email. The decision is then hard to explain later.
03
Information is copied between steps
Employee details, job demands and manager questions are re-entered into assessments, letters and reports. Errors appear, and the original request becomes harder to reconstruct.
04
Status is visible only to the person doing the chasing
Operations teams, clinicians and referring managers need different views of the same referral. If progress lives in inboxes, nobody has a reliable current state.
How the work should run
The referral should explain why the case exists.
A coherent referral workflow keeps the request intact, makes the triage decision explicit, and only then opens the operational work. Appointments, forms, documents and reports belong to that work. They should not replace the referral that caused it.
Create the referral
The referring employer or manager supplies employee details, the reason for the request, relevant employment context and the questions occupational health is being asked to answer.
Review and triage
The occupational health service checks completeness, urgency and pathway, then accepts or declines the request with a recorded reason.
Open the operational case
Acceptance creates the workspace for appointments, tasks, forms, documents and clinical activity. The referral remains the account of why that work exists.
Complete the clinical and operational steps
Appointments are scheduled, forms are submitted, documents are kept in context, and the occupational health outcome is prepared for review.
Release the report and retain the history
The authorised outcome goes to the appropriate recipient. The referral, case and report remain available as a connected history rather than a closed inbox thread.
Domain language
Referral and case are related records, not interchangeable labels.
Collapsing them into one generic item makes reporting, triage and clinical work harder to govern. Occentra keeps the distinction explicit.
Referral
A request for occupational health services. It holds the reason, the questions, the supplied information and the triage decision.
Case
The operational work created when a referral is accepted. It holds appointments, tasks, forms, documents and the activity that leads to a report.
How Occentra helps
Occentra models the referral lifecycle directly.
Occentra is built around an explicit referral-to-case operating model. The value is a workflow teams can see, not a digital replica of a paper form.
A referral captures why occupational health input has been requested, the questions being asked and the information supplied. Draft, submitted, received, triaged, accepted and declined are explicit states, so intake does not depend on an inbox convention.
Accepting a referral creates its case. The case then holds appointments, tasks, submitted forms and the activity needed to produce an occupational health report. Closing a case is constrained by work that is still outstanding, which prevents an appointment being mistaken for completion of the referral.
Referring organisations receive the progress and released outcomes appropriate to their role. Clinical detail remains with authorised clinicians. The original referral questions stay available throughout, so the report can answer what was actually asked.
Relevant capabilities
Referral management is a lifecycle, not a single screen.
Each step uses a named record in the same operating model, so teams can see where a request sits and what must happen next.
Referral management
Receive, review, triage, accept or decline referrals while retaining the request and questions originally supplied.
Case management
Coordinate operational work from acceptance through screening, reporting and closure.
Employees and clients
Keep the person and the referring organisation in context, including employment and contact history.
Appointments and tasks
Make scheduling, reviews and required actions visible inside the case rather than in a separate tracker.
Forms, documents and reports
Collect structured information, keep documents in context, and control report preparation, approval and release.
Role-appropriate communication
Employers, clinicians and operational users see the referral and outcome information their role requires.
Where this work happens
The same occupational health problem, in different operating environments.
Referral volume and complexity vary by who is delivering the service. Providers coordinating many employer clients, and internal teams in the NHS or local government, feel that pressure first.
Occupational health providers
Run multi-client referrals, clinical cases, appointments and reporting from one governed platform.
NHS and healthcare
Coordinate staff clearance, vaccination, exposure incidents and return-to-work advice across clinical services.
Local government
Manage referrals, surveillance and return-to-work support across social care, waste, highways and corporate services.
Continue
Related reading on the platform.
Product
Follow the connected journey from referral received to report released.
Sickness absence
Many management referrals exist because of absence from work.
Xero integration
Billable Case work recorded in Occentra can synchronise into Xero Projects.
Other solutions
See how Occentra would handle your referral pathway.
Show us a management referral you run today, including the questions, triage rules and report release. We will configure the demonstration around that pathway.