Referral to Hospital by your GP
Having visited your GP, you maybe referred to hospital for further investigations and treatment. Once your referral has been received you will then be added to the hospital’s Outpatient Waiting List.
In order to ensure your visit to hospital can be facilitated please note the following:
- When you attend your G.P. please advise them if you would require an interpreter to be in attendance at your appointment.
- Please ensure that all contact information is up to date eg address, telephone number.
- Your GP will then send an electronic referral to the hospital within your healthboard area.
- Referral is then processed by the hospital.
- You should be normally be appointed within 12 weeks, this maybe sooner if your Doctor has classed your referral as urgent – Please do not contact the Practice before this time to check on the progress of your referral.
- You can if you wish contact the hospital department directly that you have been referred to, if you have any concerns. Call the switchboard on 01382 660111 and ask for the department you have been referred to.
- Our staff are happy to help where possible but once your referral to Secondary Care has be sent, we don’t have any control over the appointment time, location or waiting list services.
What you can expect
When offering you an appointment, the hospital will:
- Give you a minimum of 7 days notice of an offer of appointment.
- Inform you of the consequences of refusing a reasonable offer.
- Send notice of appointments by letter and in a format appropriate to your needs
- Tell you how long the appointment will last prior to attending.
- Ensure that if the Hospital breaches the Treatment Time Guarantee, you are offered the next available appointment and an explanation given as to why the guarantee was breached.
- Ensure that any additional needs are taken into account and support is in place when offering an appointment.
- Explain to you that it might not always be possible for you to be seen and treated locally and provide details of possible locations.
- Advise you as early as possible if you will need to travel for treatment.
- If you require transport for the upcoming appointment, please phone one week in advance. Please access the patient transport to arrange this. You will be asked a series of questions about your mobility, this is to assess if you are eligible for ambulance transport.
I want to check the progress of my referral
If you have any questions about hospital appointments or are looking for the results of a test done at hospital, then please phone the appropriate secretary directly via NHS Tayside switchboard on 01382 660111.
Hospital information / appointments are not always shared on to our computer system and we only get results from hospital tests that we have directly requested.