Referrals

Urgent Suspect Cancer Referrals

An "Urgent Suspected Cancer" referral is the most urgent and quickest referral a GP can make, and allows a patient with symptoms that may indicate an underlying cancer to be seen as quickly as possible.

Your GP referred you because they are concerned about your symptoms and require a specialist opinion to exclude cancer.

Important - after your appointment at the hospital

Please ensure you follow up with the GP that referred you; these hospital pathways often have minimal clinical oversight on their side, meaning things may get missed or not followed up!

After your specialist appointment

We would expect hospital and specialist clinics to:

write to us within 2-4 weeks of your appointment, with a summary of discussion, results, and a plan. You may also be copied into their letter
prescribe any URGENT medication
any regular repeat medication needs to be communicated in writing to the GP before it can be prescribed by us
inform you directly of any results of test, and further action
if you have missed an appointment due to an admin error, they should send you another one without needing another referral

My referral was rejected by the hospital/specialist clinic

Increasingly, hospitals and specialist clinics may reject your referral.

Sometimes you or the GP may not be told this has happened and may not have been told why the referral was rejected, nor by whom. This is frustrating!

If you have not heard about a referral after 4 weeks, please contact the surgery to chase this up.

If a referral is rejected, we would expect in return:

an explanation as to why it was rejected
specialist advice for how we can continue to help and support you in the community rather than needing specialist input
an alternative department to refer you to
re-attempt to refer you

Unfortunately, if the above has been exhausted, we would advise you to escalate your concerns to the hospital and specialist clinic directly, via their complaints procedure.

Expedite Appointment Request

The Practice has no control over hospital or specialist clinic waiting times.

If your symptoms have changed and you feel you should be seen sooner, please download and complete this form.

Once completed, please hand this to reception, post or email it to us. We will then forward this on the the relevant hospital/specialist department to consider your request.

Please note that this form is not a guarantee that your appointment will be expedited.

If you remain dissatisfied, please contact the relevant departments on the numbers below.