Single Point of Access (SPA): What It Is, How It Works & Why It Matters

Joe Krasinski
Jun 25
2 min read

A Single Point of Access is a 24/7 multidisciplinary hub that receives every referral, self-referral or professional enquiry, triages it once, and sends the child, young person or family to the right service first time—slashing duplication, wait-times and costs. It can across multiple areas such as mental health, public health and social care or limited to one, such as mental health. It can be for urgent care, such as A&E SPoA or routine, non urgent care.

Why all the confusion?

Term	What it really means	Key difference in a SPA
Call-centre	Non-clinical switchboard that simply passes messages	SPA includes clinical decision-makers
Front door	Any first contact with a service (often phone)	SPA is a central "door" to multiple services
Digital front door	NHS App / web form that lets users start the journey online england.nhs.uk	SPA blends digital and phone, backed by real-time triage
111	National, algorithm-led advisory line	SPA owns local referrals, and can integrate health and social care

Five headline benefits everyone can sell

One referral, one record. Clinicians see complete context; families avoid repeating their story.
Clinical triage in < 72 hours. Early risk-stratification prevents crises and speeds routine care.
“No wrong door” access. Parents, schools, GPs and even young people themselves can self-refer.
Real-time capacity view. SPA can refer straight into Early Help, community CAMHS, crisis pathways or Virtual Wards.
Data you can act on. Live dashboards show conversion rates, rejected referrals and bottlenecks—fuel for continuous improvement.

What makes an SPOA work (beyond a phone line)

Multidisciplinary duty team—advanced practitioners, psychologists, social workers.
Trusted Triage pathways so partners accept SPA decisions without re-assessing.
Interoperable tech stack—shared record access plus direct booking APIs.
Outcome-focused KPIs such as “referral-to-decision ≤ 3 days” and “≥ 90 % calls answered inside two minutes.”

FAQs

Is a Single Point of Access the same as NHS 111? No. 111 is national, algorithm-driven and advice-only; a SPA is your local clinical gateway that owns the referral.

Can parents self-refer to a CAMHS SPA? Yes, in an effective one. Opening self-referral is now best practice and reduces GP bottlenecks as well as better quality requests for support

What does an SPOA cost to run? All depends on the make up of the team but the real cost savings is in getting people to support quicker and eradicating pintless rejected referrals wasting everyone's time.

How does a digital front door fit in? Think of digital referral forms as channels feeding into the same SPA triage queue, not a separate service.

Next steps for commissioners & service leads

Benchmark: Map every current entry route, service offers and duplicate forms.
Co-design: Bring young people, families & front-line staff into sprint workshops.
Pilot: Start with a Minimum Viable Product with a longer term development goal
Scale & automate: Layer in AI-assisted triage or chatbots only after the human process is solid.

→ Ready to build or upgrade your SPA? Talk to the Thrive-Connect team and see how our evidence-based Thrive Model streamlines setup and ongoing optimisation.