question about optician and hospital referral (nhs)

Legacy_user

I was wondering how it works when your optician wants to refer you to the eye hospital. Does the optician write to your GP first, and the GP then sends a referral letter on to the eye hospital? (and presumably it will then come out of the GP's budget?)

Does anyone have any experience or knowledge about this?

Thanks

nedmundo

It certainly used to be that way, but depending on which condition and what area you are in, there are a lot of direct referral pathways where the referral is sent directly to the hospital, with the GP copied in.

The GP does still foot the bill though.

Floss

My optician (Boots) wrote to my local hospital who sent me an appointment. It was quite a quick process as it is a referral by a professional who felt there was a problem needing investigation.


I don't think my GP was involved at all.

System

My optician gave me a letter and a disk of what they had found with instructions to give it to my GP.

System

Thankyou. Perhaps it varies from place to place. My optician has found something that needs investigating at the eye-hospital and has asked that I contact my GP surgery in a few days' time. It seems I need to ensure that the GP has received the optician's letter and also find out if the surgery have sent the referral to the hospital. It seems a long and complicated way of doing things but I expect it is down to whoever is going to fund the referral. I have been warned by the optician that letters go missing (even when hand-delivered!) but I don't know what would happen if the GP were to say no to the referral.

sillyvixen

in my area our opticians can refer directly to eye department for cataracts and glaucoma, everything else goes through the gp, unless they need to be seen there and then in which case we have to contact the hospital and get them to agree to see them.

with regards to referral letters from your optician ask for a photocopy, as some surgeries loose paperwork like no ones business, and if you take a copy of the letter the dr will be able to read it at your appointment. i have faxed copies of letters to some surgeries in are area as they 'did not receive the posted copy' while the secretary was on the phone by the fax machine and confirmed the fax had arrived - only to be phoned by the surgery 1/2 hour later from the surgery as they had Mr X in apparently we had referred them and no referral had EVER been recieved!!

System

sillyvixen wrote: »

in my area our opticians can refer directly to eye department for cataracts and glaucoma, everything else goes through the gp, unless they need to be seen there and then in which case we have to contact the hospital and get them to agree to see them.

with regards to referral letters from your optician ask for a photocopy, as some surgeries loose paperwork like no ones business, and if you take a copy of the letter the dr will be able to read it at your appointment.

No it's neither of those.

I have found out that the surgery have received the optician's letter, so that's the first link of the chain. I will now have to wait and see if the referral is approved and sent on to the eye-hospital.

I wonder if or when NHS referrals will be done electronically. It would save a lot of time and a lot of letters going missing?

chanie

Where I live, the opticians can refer directly to the hospital. My son was complaining about his eyes and it turned out he was long sighted. Due to his young age and the severity of his condition, the optician had to refer him to the hospital. It took a few weeks for the appointment letter and about 6 weeks notice of the appointment.

I hope everything is okay for you.