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If you’ve been referred to a specialist through the NHS e-Referral Service, you can
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If as a result of an appointment your clinician feels you need an NHS referral you will receive a contact (by text or letter) from the surgery within 7 – 10 days either with your appointment details or with instructions on how to book your appointment. Please note for NHS referrals once the referral has been done GP practices do not have control over appointments. How to change appointments and are other common queries are explained in the section below on NHS referrals,
The practice private referral policy, see under
Contact details for local private hospitals can be found under
Information on how to manage your NHS hospital appointment can be found under “How to change your appointment details, change or cancel your appointment, or cancel your referral” (outpatient local support) under
In brief, GP practices do not have any control over the appointments system once they have done the referral, so you are always best contacting the hospital directly with any appointment issues. A summary of your two options with managing hospital appointments is found below.
NHS e-referral service
You can use the NHS e-Referral Service if you have received a letter saying you can use this system.
Contact the hospital directly
You can book, cancel or change a hospital appointment by contacting a hospital directly by phone. There are links to local hospital contact details under
Other topics are covered below:
If you are unable to manage your appointment satisfactorily using the NHS e-referral service and contacting the hospital directly, then you can contact the PALS team associated with the hospital you have been referred to. Their contact details can be found under
Once a referral has been completed by a GP practice (if a self-referral route is not available) then the organisation you have been referred to takes over full responsibility for this referral including any follow up appointments. If you have any issues including around delays in appointments or needing to change an appointment you should contact the organisation directly. There is further information including contact details for some of the common local community services under
You can find local hospital outpatient waiting times and information on the operations/ procedures they undertake, see under
If you require more prolonged treatment (such as surgery) remember if you do choose a hospital further away than your local hospital that if you decide to switch back to your local hospital this is not a quick process and can disrupt your treatment.
Early diagnosis of a disease may mean more effective treatment and better outcomes. For this reason, where there is a possibility that symptoms could indicate cancer, people are referred urgently to see a specialist (on what is called a ‘two-week pathway’). The great majority of people referred this way do not have cancer, but it is important to see a specialist as soon as possible to confirm or exclude a cancer diagnosis.
This is explained further under
This includes information on what to expect and who to contact if there are any issues with getting the appointment within 2 weeks. There are also links to other support available.
Some treatments may not be funded under the NHS and these are included under
Self-referral involves accessing NHS health services and other support yourself without needing an appointment with your GP. This is explained further by patient info Self-referral | Patient.
Local and national self-referral routes can be found under the relevant topic, see
Some of the more commonly used local self- referrals have been listed in the section “Outside practice self-referrals” under