Increase of the character limit on Advice and Guidance requests and responses in the NHS e-Referral Service

Providing the ability to add more text to A&G requests and responses means:

• specialists provide more detailed, accurate, and nuanced clinical guidance, reducing ambiguity or the need for follow-up clarification
• clinicians can focus on delivering high-quality advice rather than condensing or editing out important clinical information
• elimination of inefficient practices such as sending attachments, splitting responses across multiple messages, or directing clinicians to external channels

When a significant amount of text has been added to a response or request this will display with a scroll bar on the screen.

If too many characters are added an error message is presented.