'Just checking where we are with this one'
An HR adviser at one of your employer clients has a line manager asking when the occupational health report will be ready. She emails your service. An hour later she rings, because nobody replied. Your administrator stops what she was doing, opens the clinical system, finds the case, sees the appointment is tomorrow, and says so. Twenty minutes later another HR team rings about a different case.
Each call is small. Together they fill a large part of the admin day, and they interrupt the work that would actually move cases along.
Why HR has to ask
HR sits between your service and the manager who made the referral. The manager asks HR, HR asks you. There is no shared view of the case, so every question becomes a message.
- Referral acknowledgements are generic and say nothing about next steps.
- Appointment dates are known to you and the employee, not always to HR.
- Reports held for employee consent look, from outside, just like overdue reports.
- Different HR people at one employer ask about the same case.
- The confidentiality line makes admin staff cautious about what they can say on the phone.
That last point matters. Administrators taking calls have to decide, on the spot, what they are allowed to share, which is slow and sometimes inconsistent.
The cost of being a switchboard
| Status question | Answered by phone | Answered by the portal |
|---|---|---|
| Has the referral arrived? | Admin checks the inbox | Shown as received with date |
| When is the appointment? | Admin opens the diary | Date shown if your rules allow |
| Where is the report? | Admin checks with the clinician | Stage shown, including awaiting consent |
| Why is it late? | Admin reads notes | Reason from a fixed list |
| Can we have a copy again? | Admin re-sends | Released reports available to download |
The obvious cost is admin time. The less obvious one is the impression it gives: a provider that cannot say where a case is looks disorganised, even when the case is exactly on track.
The employer portal we build
- Each employer gets a secure portal, with named HR users and access limited to their own cases, and optionally to their own sites or departments.
- Each case shows its stage in plain terms: referral received, referral incomplete, appointment booked, report being written, awaiting employee, report released, closed.
- Dates and next steps are shown only where your consent and confidentiality rules allow. The rules decide what is displayed, not the person answering the phone.
- Delays show a reason from a fixed list, such as employee rescheduled or awaiting further information, so HR can manage the manager's expectations.
- Released reports can be downloaded from the portal instead of re-sent by email.
- New referrals can be submitted through the same portal, using your guided referral forms.
- HR users can be notified by email when a case changes stage, if they want that.
The portal reads status from your clinical system or case records. It never shows clinical notes, and what it does show is agreed with your clinical lead and data protection adviser.
What your admin team notices
Because status now comes from the case record rather than from a phone call, it is also consistent. Two HR advisers at the same employer see the same thing, and a manager who is told 'awaiting employee' by HR hears the same answer your administrator would have given.
The phone rings less. Status questions still come, but most are answered before they are asked, and the ones that reach your team are the ones that need a person. HR teams trust the service more because they can see progress, and your administrators no longer make judgement calls about what to say.
Could this be your service?
- HR teams email and then ring about the same case.
- Admin staff open the clinical system many times a day just to answer status questions.
- Reports held for consent are seen by employers as late.
- Reports are re-sent because HR cannot find the email.
- Staff are unsure what they can tell employers over the phone.