As part of our commitment to ongoing service improvement, Mersey Care will conduct a trial of a new digital physiotherapy triage system.
DART is an mHealth system which patients who self refer will be able to access via a link on the existing Mersey Care website pages for St Helens and Knowsley. DART provides a thorough red flag screening and stratifies the patient to the correct level of musculoskeletal care, with an average length of assessment being seven minutes.
It should be noted that DART does not give a diagnosis or intend to replace clinicians. It instead facilitates reduction in clinician led self referral triage and subsequent reallocation of physiotherapists to work at the top of their skill set.
The algorithm within DART replicates the service inclusion criteria and clinical routing provided within the existing physiotherapy pathway, including all safety netting.
THIS SERVICE DOES NOT INCLUDE PATIENTS WHO ARE REGISTERED WITH A KIRKBY GP.
We will assess any change in the efficiency of access to the correct level of intervention for physiotherapy patients. This will include use of clinical and administrative resource, patient, clinician and administrator satisfaction and potential cost benefits.
The trial will run for approximately three months, which should be enough time to process the number of referrals we need to measure success.
We will be in touch before the end of the trial to inform you of when we expect the end date to be and what will happen after this.
We will also ask for your feedback at the end of the trial.
GPs and their administrative staff are asked to direct self referring physiotherapy patients to DART.
This new process will start on Wednesday 22 July 2026.
On that date our current self referral forms will be switched off and a new link to DART embedded on the St Helens and Knowsley sites. Nothing else will change for your practice, you just need to direct patients to self refer to our service via those sites (as per the previous process).
Patients will be able to access DART using a link on the existing Mersey Care web pages for St Helens and Knowsley, which will replace the current online self referral form. This method of self referral will be promoted to patients as being a quicker and easier way for them to access help for their problem.
Patients less confident online will be encouraged (via the written material and on the website) to seek help from family or friends to complete their assessment, a practice common amongst those who do not speak English as their first language or who have reduced eHealth literacy.
About DART:
- DART has been developed by a team of musculoskeletal specialists and NHS MSK service leaders
- It has been the subject of six years research in conjunction with Queen Mary University of London, resulting in five published research papers
- DART has been commissioned by Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust and has been in use within their MSK service for three years
- It is registered as a medical device with Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency and has full Digital Technology Assessment Criteria certification to allow use within the NHS
- In May 2026, DART was shortlisted for the 2026 HSJ Digital Awards
- Our collaboration with Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals has been used as a best practice case study on the GIRFT website.
For more information about DART, please contact:
Cabella