Referral Acceptance

ENT referrals are prioritised by senior medical officers based on the information contained within. Additional information  should be attached where available. The priorisation tool used to grade referrals can be found under Access Criteria.

All ENT conditions that are secondary to trauma in NZ are covered by ACC but an ACC claim number and date of injury must be included in the referral.  The claim must be registered with and accepted by ACC prior to the consultation.

All accepted referrals will be seen within a maximum waiting time of 4 months, unless there is a clinical reason for delay.

Referral acceptance is a follows:

At First Specialist Assessment (FSA), patients are assessed by a specialist and if surgery is required, patients are then prioritised using the National ENT CPAC tool. A 0-100 score is allocated to each patient.

Prior to acceptance for surgery, patients are assessed in Anaesthetic preassessment clinic to ensure they are fit for surgery.

All patients accepted for surgery will be treated within a maximum waiting time of 4 months, unless there is a clinical reason for delay.

Surgery acceptance is as follows:

Access Criteria

National Access Criteria for First Assessment (ACA)
Bay of Plenty Variation (Jan 2020)

Note: Access criteria that determine prioritisation primarily on the referral diagnosis have their limitations and this is acknowledged. For those referrals in which the referring doctor has not been able to make a confident diagnosis it may be difficult, or impossible, to apply these ACA criteria. It is therefore stressed that these are guidelines only and that clinical judgement must be applied in all cases in which they are used.