I had to pay £10 for this! Really??

[iwoulddoanything]

Can't attach pic but H needed a letter from the doctor about his condition to support an application. We had to pay £10 and the letter literally says 'I can confirm x has y, hope this helps'. Is that standard??

Yes. It takes time out the doctors day to write letters for people.

I think so. DS had to pay £20 to have a letter for Uni when he had Glandular Fever.

Yes, it’s normal and quite a low charge compared to some places. Why should the NHS be taking the hit on the time it’s clinicians spend on pandering to the whims of private companies?

£10 is very cheap. Why do you think it should be provided free of charge?

It's £25 in our surgery. Similar situation as poster above. DS had glandular fever whilst doing his A Levels.

No I don't think it should be free! Sorry, what I meant was, given it was made clear that he needed how this condition affects him to support his application and the doctor said 'yes, that's fine', is this enough information to go on, to just say he has the condition? That's what I'm worried about- I'd have been happy to pay £20 for a little more info!

Yup standard and quite cheap.
Our surgery charges for benefit supporting letters too.

Yes that should be fine. You can talk in more depth about the impact of the condition (you probably know it better than the doctor) but the doctor has now confirmed and legitimised the condition officially, which is what they need to sort the chancers from those in need.

The money isn't what I'm annoyed about- H asked that he wrote a letter confirming his condition and explaining how it affects him. Doctor agreed. This letter is 11 words long (excluding address and kind regards).

Okay @BeamerTown , thank you!

Is there anything specific you would like them to add? Doctors have to be very careful to only put in things they 100% know to be true, usually diagnoses and medication. For a detailed letter about how it affects him individually work may have to arrange an occupational health assessment.

Well you’ve got a letter with from a qualified doctor confirming your DH has x condition. Not sure what you were really expecting from this gp??

How can a standard GP confirm 100% the effect a condition has on someone? A specialist doctor for that condition that saw you regularly might but not a GP

Some GP's arent happy to go into too much detail about how a chronic condition effects a patient because they dont truly know. That said, the GP could have at least put how often he visits for the condition and what meds he takes.

What else did you want the GP to write?

Standard charge, standard content.

Often not that helpful to those they are sent to. Consultant letters tend to be more informative.

Ours charge £40.

It’s not to do with the number of words but the time it takes the doctor to confirm the issue and the fact their signature is on it.

I phoned my mil surgery after she had a heart attack while abroad, needed a letter for the insurance company to confirm she hadn’t flown knowing she was unwell.
The receptionist told me the charge was £50 but she didn’t bother to ask who the patient was or indeed how she was. That annoyed the hell out of me and she wasn’t really sure what to say when I pointed out the lack of interest other than financial.

OK, I'm not a GP, but I do often get asked for financial references/income confirmations for my clients as I'm their accountant.

Some requests are particularly vague and unhelpful to me. If the organisation requesting the "reference" isn't specific, I find it really difficult to know what information to provide and just how far to go.

I suspect the same may apply here. What exactly did you ask the GP to do - did you provide them with a letter asking for the details or a copy of the information required by the organisation?

If I get a vague request, then I just give a very quick/simple letter, i.e. x has been a client, trading as ABC for y years. I am not going to spend an hour writing a long letter about their income, expenses, etc for the last 6 years, unless that's specifically asked for.

GPs will know what most organisations want, and I suspect that will usually be simply a confirmation/diagnosis of the condition.

I work for a college and we often need evidence of conditions - some GPs will do this for free, others charge.

I usually say to students to ask their GP reception about getting a printout of their health records - this should be free (and I think in many parts accessible online now?) This would be sufficient for our purposes as long as it was official and included name and address of person, and I guess you could always black out other irrelevant information.

My doctor surgery charges £15 so yeah £10 isn't bad.

it was made clear that he needed how this condition affects him to support his application

as a GP, I often don't know that information. But it should have been made clear if it was just a factual letter or more detail.

No my GP charged me 30 quid for one line that said my child could use a SATS monitor due to severe epilepsy. One word was spelt wromg so it had just been crossed out and written over with biro. I kid you not !
At 10 pounds you got off lightly !

Whatever you are applying for, they should be the people going to your GP. That's what happens with PIP etc. That way they can ask the specifics.

We wanted the mobility issue mentioned (very obvious when you see H that his mobility isn't good).