Requests to expedite (speed-up) hospital appointments
Queries Relating to Hospital Appointments
Dear Patient
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.
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.
The following is an extract from the NHS Standard Contract, which hospitals must work to, regarding the queries from patients:
12.2 The Provider [hospital] must:
- 12.2.1 provide Service Users [patients] (in relation to their own care) and Referrers [GPs] (in relation to the care of an individual Service User) with clear information in respect of each Service about who to contact if they have questions about their care and how to do so;
- 12.2.2 ensure that there are efficient arrangements in place in respect of each Service for responding promptly and effectively to such questions and that these are publicised to Service Users and Referrers using all appropriate means, including appointment and admission letters and on the Provider’s website; and
- 12.2.3 wherever possible, deal with such questions from Service Users itself, and not by advising the Service User to speak to their Referrer.
Therefore, please do not accept any comments that you must speak with your GP, as the hospital is contractually obliged to speak with you and answer your queries directly.
Written Requests To Expedite (speed-up) 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.
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.
*Official figures as of March 2024 show that a total of 7.54 million people were waiting to start hospital treatment in England, the highest number since records began.
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).
If you have already rung the hospital and described your difficulties and they remain insistent that your GP supply a letter, please download and complete the following letter and pass it through to us 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 its own workload.