GP no urgent referrals processing time question

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Hello

NB: This is not a medical health question but a general question that is not discussing/seeking advice regarding a particular health condition, but seeking your experiences/help in any referral to an NHS hospital by your

GP in England

The other day I went to see the doc. He agreed to a hospital referral.

I rang the hospital this morning seeking an approximate indication of how long the

appointment will take. I was advised that no GP referral was received. I emailed the GP, and I was advised that they are taking about 3 weeks to process non-urgent referrals.

FYI: I saw a fully qualified GP, not an assistant/etc.

Your sharing of your knowledge (any action you took to speed up the delay) would be greatly appreciated.

MyRealNameToo

The last two referrals I had the GP at least did the initial part of it there and then when I was in the room as we have multiple local hospitals and they gave a choice with an approximate wait time for each. I dont know if they had to do more behind the scenes after but given each had been a 4-9 month wait I wasnt chasing a few days later. 

On the one urgent referral had, to a non-NHS facility, it appears the GP half dictated a letter and then went off on a 3 week holiday with the dictaphone incomplete and locked in her desk. 

elsien

ETA, I misread this initially but if there are other people in the queue in front of you with the GP prectice also for non-urgent referrals, I’m not sure why you feel you should take priority over them? 

Once they have referred it’s really out of the GP’s hands unless something changes in the interim. 

I am working with someone who was originally expecting an appointment for a surgical procedure sometime in June but I’ve now managed to speak directly to the consultant’s secretary who has advised that for reasons to beyond their control the consultant is now only doing one clinic a week instead of the four they were doing previously so the timescale is currently unknown. in those circumstances, you just have to wait your turn.

UnsureAboutthis

MyRealNameToo said:

The last two referrals I had the GP at least did the initial part of it there and then when I was in the room as we have multiple local hospitals and they gave a choice with an approximate wait time for each. I dont know if they had to do more behind the scenes after but given each had been a 4-9 month wait I wasnt chasing a few days later. 

On the one urgent referral had, to a non-NHS facility, it appears the GP half dictated a letter and then went off on a 3 week holiday with the dictaphone incomplete and locked in her desk. 

Many thanks for the very helpful response. 

Anyone else finding that their GP practice is taking up to three weeks to process/send a standard referral for their patients?

Spoonie_Turtle

I once had a GP just not to do a referral.  A few months later I tried to chase it up, he was on holiday, so his colleague did it.

That same colleague later did a referral within 5 days, but I think from the telephone consultation she had made up her mind she was going to refer even before seeing me and doing the tests in the surgery, the tests were just to establish whether it was an urgent or routine referral.  (The waiting list for a cardiology appointment after referral was a year!)

I am not surprised though that your surgery is taking 3 weeks.  GPs in general are absolutely swamped, there are plenty of graduating GPs each year and a dire shortage of working GPs, but not the funding for job roles to actually employ people.  (Dr Amir Khan has spoken about this recently and I've seen several other doctors highlight it too.)


If you have access to your patient record online you'll be able to see when it gets done.

UnsureAboutthis

Spoonie_Turtle said:

I once had a GP just not to do a referral.  A few months later I tried to chase it up, he was on holiday, so his colleague did it.

That same colleague later did a referral within 5 days, but I think from the telephone consultation she had made up her mind she was going to refer even before seeing me and doing the tests in the surgery, the tests were just to establish whether it was an urgent or routine referral.  (The waiting list for a cardiology appointment after referral was a year!)

I am not surprised though that your surgery is taking 3 weeks.  GPs in general are absolutely swamped, there are plenty of graduating GPs each year and a dire shortage of working GPs, but not the funding for job roles to actually employ people.  (Dr Amir Khan has spoken about this recently and I've seen several other doctors highlight it too.)


If you have access to your patient record online you'll be able to see when it gets done.

Thanks for the insight of your local GP/hospital and the app tip.

Wow, a year waiting list for cardiology. I hope that has improved.

I've phoned and asked to join the surgery's forum, and they have taken my name. However, the next meeting is no until the end of September. 

Junior doctors ' strikes are not helping any hospital's waiting list.  I'm not sure why they are not paying the doctors close to what they are requesting again, as delays affect millions  (waiting lists just grow) of ordinary people who cannot afford private HC.

I do have an App, but the surgery is not great at uploading the information other than sending repeat alerts about your next appointment. 

I also attend hospitals over two large London trusts, and one cannot automatically see the other's records for the same patient, and which slows up the process even more.

Spoonie_Turtle

UnsureAboutthis said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

I once had a GP just not to do a referral.  A few months later I tried to chase it up, he was on holiday, so his colleague did it.

That same colleague later did a referral within 5 days, but I think from the telephone consultation she had made up her mind she was going to refer even before seeing me and doing the tests in the surgery, the tests were just to establish whether it was an urgent or routine referral.  (The waiting list for a cardiology appointment after referral was a year!)

I am not surprised though that your surgery is taking 3 weeks.  GPs in general are absolutely swamped, there are plenty of graduating GPs each year and a dire shortage of working GPs, but not the funding for job roles to actually employ people.  (Dr Amir Khan has spoken about this recently and I've seen several other doctors highlight it too.)


If you have access to your patient record online you'll be able to see when it gets done.

Thanks for the insight of your local GP/hospital and the app tip.

…

I do have an App, but the surgery is not great at uploading the information other than sending repeat alerts about your next appointment. 

I also attend hospitals over two large London trusts, and one cannot automatically see the other's records for the same patient, and which slows up the process even more.

That's frustrating.  I get every tiny thing uploaded to my patient record from the GP, literally even to the point of 'consent obtained' for drawing blood for a blood test when that was the entire purpose of the appointment! 

On the other hand, I have no way of accessing my hospital records at all (which would be very useful), so I guess that along with your experience shows just how wildly it varies.

[Btw just for clarification because I realise not everyone will have seen him - the reference to Dr Amir Khan was because he often appears on TV so he is an NHS GP in the public eye, not some random local Dr that nobody else would know!]

MyRealNameToo

UnsureAboutthis said:
I also attend hospitals over two large London trusts, and one cannot automatically see the other's records for the same patient, and which slows up the process even more.

It seems odd that we have the NHS App where you can see things like your GP's test results, records etc, then our hospital trust uses Epic's MyChart but other trusts have gone with other EPRs. Typical spiders web of solutions. Most seem to be able to see each others stuff but it requires them to go into the NHS Spine or some other thing to do so rather than it all just being there as you say. 

That said, the day of the CrowdStrike issues I was due an injection but the GP's surgery was turning everyone away because their systems were down. Whilst most systems were down MyChart was still working fine so managed to convince them that they could see the consultants letter confirming the dose, frequency and last injections on an official platform and therefore could proceed to administer. 

UnsureAboutthis

MyRealNameToo said:

UnsureAboutthis said:
I also attend hospitals over two large London trusts, and one cannot automatically see the other's records for the same patient, and which slows up the process even more.

It seems odd that we have the NHS App where you can see things like your GP's test results, records etc, then our hospital trust uses Epic's MyChart but other trusts have gone with other EPRs. Typical spiders web of solutions. Most seem to be able to see each others stuff but it requires them to go into the NHS Spine or some other thing to do so rather than it all just being there as you say. 

That said, the day of the CrowdStrike issues I was due an injection but the GP's surgery was turning everyone away because their systems were down. Whilst most systems were down MyChart was still working fine so managed to convince them that they could see the consultants letter confirming the dose, frequency and last injections on an official platform and therefore could proceed to administer. 

Thanks.

It is a battle at times on top of your health concerns ie getting the other hospital et,c seeing your results. I've asked my hospitals to send the results to the other. Often its a case of a miss more than a hit.

not only can the two trusts not see the other's hospital records at the push of a button, but blood test results requested by a GP can't be seen by the hospital as I found out the other day. The results were with the GP as I'd seen him about it. Both of the hospitals I refer to are London hospitals.

UnsureAboutthis

Looking for more help in order to prepare my case.

Is there any official guidance of what to expect about non-urgent referrals from a GP surgery in England?

I've been looking a bit today and a couple of days ago, and the only thing I can come up with is 
"expect a referral to be sent within  minutes/hours or 2 working days.."  The other bit of info iI have seen and it is the longest period, is 1 to 5 working days," but even that quote states "5 days is rare." However, all of this came from AI via Google and other forums where people asked questions eg, Qura IIRC

So, is there a link or official 'good practice' guidance anywhere that someone could post a link to, please? (Re GP surgeries in England as other parts of UK may be different)

Undervalued

UnsureAboutthis said:

Looking for more help in order to prepare my case.

Is there any official guidance of what to expect about non-urgent referrals from a GP surgery in England?

I've been looking a bit today and a couple of days ago, and the only thing I can come up with is 
"expect a referral to be sent within  minutes/hours or 2 working days.."  The other bit of info iI have seen and it is the longest period, is 1 to 5 working days," but even that quote states "5 days is rare." However, all of this came from AI via Google and other forums where people asked questions eg, Qura IIRC

So, is there a link or official 'good practice' guidance anywhere that someone could post a link to, please? (Re GP surgeries in England as other parts of UK may be different)

I am not sure you have "a case" as such. Other than chasing it on a bit or picking it up should yours have fallen through the net?

Any "official 'good practice' guidance" is just that, it is not a cast iron guarantee.