Hospital Care Patient Information and Queries

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Queries Regarding Hospital Care

Your GP surgery is not responsible for hospital care. This information page provides some general information about various issues around hospital care, which we are frequently presented with, and informs you how to address your concerns or queries directly with the hospital concerned.

Please be aware that all NHS organisations are as busy as ever, dealing urgent cases as well as prioritising clinical care. We urge all patients awaiting a hospital appointment or a result to be patient and wait to be contacted by the hospital directly. However, if you have a query about any hospital related matter, please contact the hospital directly.

Expediting Your Appointment

Hospital Care

Please be aware that hospitals are as busy as ever, dealing with urgent cases as well as prioritising cancer care. We urge all patients awaiting hospital appointments to be patient and wait to be contacted.

If your appointment is delayed and you desperately need an update, please ring the secretary of the hospital consultant that you are under directly for this information.

We do not have any special hotline numbers to the hospital and we are not notified in advance of any hospital appointments or operation dates you might have, therefore if you need this information, we urge you to get in touch with the hospital.

Indeed, due to hospital contract changes from April 2017, hospitals are now obliged to respond to any queries you might have about your care, in very much the same way the we as GPs respond to patients with queries about the care provided by ourselves. Accordingly, hospital matters should not fall to your GP to resolve.

Written Requests to Expedite Appointments

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. This is in fact unnecessary and creates an additional administrative burden on already stretched GP services.

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 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 well 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.

If you have already rung the hospital and described your difficulties and they remain insistent that your GP supply a letter, please contact the surgery secretary via Klinik to request the letter and we will forward it on to the hospital.

We must stress, however, that getting a quicker appointment is not always guaranteed, as we have no influence on how the hospital is managing and prioritising their own workloads.

Hospital Results

We do not have any special hotline numbers to the hospital and we are not routinely copied in to results of tests carried out by other services, therefore our staff cannot provide you with this information; in fact, it is the duty of the clinician who ordered the test to follow-up the result and take any necessary actions, which in the case of hospital tests will be the consultant and their teams, not your GP.

Indeed, due to hospital contract changes from April 2017, hospitals are now obliged to provide you with results of your tests and also to respond to any queries you might have about your care, in very much the same way the we as GPs respond to patients with queries about the care provided by ourselves. Accordingly, hospital matters should not fall to your GP to resolve.

Please contact the secretary of the consultant whom you are under so that you can put your query directly to the responsible doctor.

Hospital Prescriptions

Urgent/Specialist Medications

If the hospital needs you to start specialist or urgent/same-day medications, then as part of the hospital contract, it is actually their responsibility to provide a prescription for you, whether this is after a face-to-face appointment or a remote assessment. If this is the case, please contact the secretary of the hospital doctor who has made this recommendation.

In situations where prescriptions cannot be sent electronically or where you have already left the hospital, hospitals have access to paper prescription pads and the postal service to be able to supply you with the medication that they want you to start. Do not accept claims that you would need to make a special journey to the hospital to collect a prescription.

Hospital Pharmacy Medications

If you are issued with a hospital prescription at your appointment, please take it to the hospital pharmacy to get it dispensed. Many patients present to us because they do not wish to wait at the hospital pharmacy. Please note, we are under no obligation to convert any hospital issued prescription to a GP issued one. If we do so, it will be at our discretion and the timescale will be in line with the non-urgent medication process as described below. For medications that must be urgently started, these must be supplied by the hospital as previously indicated.

Non-Urgent Medications

Where the hospital wishes us to commence you on non-urgent medication, they will send us an outpatient prescription. These will be processed routinely as per our normal prescription process, which may take anything from 2-5 working days (as indicated on the outpatient prescription itself). These are not urgent and in any case, urgent medications must be supplied by the hospital as described above. Therefore, please do not be offended if the processing of your non-urgent prescription does not meet with your expected timescale.

Medications After Private Consultations

Please note we are under no obligation to issue medications following a private consultation or convert a privately issued prescription to a GP issued one. Requests will be reviewed on an individual basis and if agreed, will be processed in line with the non-urgent medication process and timescale as described above.

Sick Notes After Hospital Care

For sick/fit notes following hospital admission, outpatients or operations, please ask your hospital doctor to provide you with one before you leave hospital. Despite what the hospital might say about seeing your GP for a sick note, it is the legal and contractual duty of the hospital doctor treating you to provide a fit note should you require it.

If you have already left hospital without your sick note, please contact the secretary of the consultant whom you were under. It remains a hospital responsibility to issue the first sick note after any hospital attendance. When asking for your sick note please ensure that it is for the correct/required duration - there is no legal requirement for the first note to be only two weeks if your consultant has already advised that your absence from work is going to be a lot longer.

Hospitals have access to paper sick note pads and the postal service to get your sick note to you.

If you still have difficulty obtaining your sick note from the hospital, please contact the PALS (Patient Advice and Liaison Service) of the hospital concerned and they can assist you.

Chasing Hospital Letters

Please note that we have no control over how quickly (or slowly), it takes for the hospital to write to us. Unfortunately we are not in a position to have our already extremely busy admin staff ringing the hospital to chase letters and as indicated above, we have no special hotline to the hospital in order to do this.

We therefore kindly ask that patients ring the hospital secretary to chase up any letters that are not yet with us.

Investigations or Treatment Requested by a Private Provider/Consultant

Where a patient is under a private consultant, the responsibility for carrying out tests and prescribing medication lies with the private provider. The following document provides more information.

Learn More

Visit the NHS website to learn more about being referred to a specialist by your GP:

NHS - Referrals for specialist care