If you have been referred by the Practice for further care you will have been advised of this during your consultation by a member of the clinical team, or via member of the admin team.  If you have been sent for any investigations then you will receive a letter confirming the time and date (unless otherwise instructed). 

All hospital referrals made via 'Choose and Book' can be processed by clicking on the link or contacting 0345 60 88 88 8. You must have your reference number and password to hand in order to complete this. This document may be sent to you as an attachment via text message or e-mail. If you have not been provided with this document, or are unable to open the attachment, then please contact the the Practice.  Please always ensure that we have your correct mobile phone and/or email address.

Further information about choose and book is available via NHS choices by using the following link: NHS Choices guide to Choose and Book

Other referrals (where you are not provided with a reference number) may be sent directly to departments who will contact you directly. (e.g. for radiology tests). You will be sent a text message to confirm that this referral has been sent. Please do not contact the Practice to chase the outcome of this referral. However, if you have not received a text message then please contact the Practice.

We are aware that patients are often told by the hospital to 'get a letter from the GP' so that their appointment can be expedited due to a deterioration in their condition since the original referral had been sent.. This is in fact unnecessary and creates an additional administrative burden on already stretched GP services.  It is unclear whether this actually makes a difference in bringing appointments forward.

As already indicated above, hospitals are contractually obliged to communicate directly with patients and respond directly and appropriately to their queries, including specifically questions about appointments. Failure to do so represents a breach of their contract.

Please be aware that simply waiting a longer time than you would wish does not make your request urgent. Unfortunately, in the current situation, everyone is waiting longer. We cannot write letters to expedite your appointment for this reason.

If, however, your condition is actively deteriorating, we advise you to speak to your specialist so that they can assess if you need to be seen sooner. We do find that an initial response might still be 'get a letter from your GP', however we are finding that we are merely reporting exactly what you have told us and it seems more sensible for patient and consultant to have a direct conversation. Should you continue to have difficulty in accessing your consultant, we advise that you contact the PALS department of the hospital for advice and assistance (see bottom of page for link).

When making decisions about who to prioritise it is only possible for the hospital to compare a patient's condition with all other patients on their waiting list.  As a Practice, we do not have access to this information nor are able to make a decision about who can be prioritised.  It is more appropriate to have a discussion with the Hospital/Consultant to which the patient has been referred.

If the hospital are insistent on the provision of an expediting letter, we have created a template (see below) which patients can use to update and forward onto the relevant department. You will need to contact the department directly to confirm their e-mail address/postal address. Please do not send the expediting letters to the Practice.

Expedite Appintment and Follow Up Letter - Dr.Rasib and Partners

If you have not received an appointment form the hospital to see a hospital Specialist/Consultant/Community Service

Please be aware that hospitals and Community services may be as busy as ever due to long waiting lists, and we are unable to track all routine referrals.

If your appointment has been delayed or if you have not been contacted following a previous referral within a reasonable period of time, then please ring the secretary of the hospital consultant/Community Service to which you have been referred to. We do not have access to any special numbers or systems to inform you of when your appointment/operation will take place. Hospitals and Community Services have a responsibility to respond to your queries, so we would encourage you to contact them directly.

If you wish to establish current likely waiting appointment times we would suggest that you visit the NHS My Planned Care website (for Hospitals), which will allow you to check the likely waiting times for appointments in secondary care. We have no control over the waiting times provided by other services.

Please do not contact the surgery to obtain further information as you will be signposted to this website.

If you have not received any acknowledgment from the Practice that your referral has been sent, or that that there has been an error in sending the referral, then please contact the Practice to avoid further delay.