To say a call would be made immediately

[MiaMarshmallows]

If something came up which looked concerning on an xray or blood test result.

Or have people not found out they had a horrible illness until weeks/months on when they have found out in other ways?

If an X-Ray, scan or blood test was done and there was something seriously untoward the hospital would contact the GP immediately and the GP would contact the patient straight away. This would happen within a few hours of the test.

I hope your relative soon finds out the results but if they contact the GP and the results say "speak to Doctor" that may not be as serious as they think either. Sometimes it's because they may have had an XRay and a CT or MRI is needed or because the bloods have shown medication is needed or a test needs to be repeated.

I would like to say it would be immediate but recently I had some blood tests and heard nothing so assumed all ok, I rang for something else completely and asked for the results while I was on the phone. The nurse stated she had to go speak to a Dr first to which the Dr came on the phone to tell me I had seriously low B12 and folate and could I be at the surgery in 30 mins to start B12 injections. I am now on monthly blood tests, tablets twice a day and monthly B12 injections, which explains fully why I felt so rubbish

I had a blood test at the go and was told to call in a week for the results, the GP called me the next day to discuss the results.

She would be called quickly if it is anything too bad. She should call her GP tomorrow (or specialist) to get the results.

Round here routine chest X-rays normally take about 2 weeks to be reported, so there’s probably no point in phoning the GP at one week unless they were told it would be back by then.
It’s not the same as blood tests which are pretty much automatically reported the same day they are done (and phoned through to t to he GP or Out of Hours GP) if there is something very serious)- there is always a backlog of X-rays waiting to be looked at by a radiologist.
Hope she gets good news.

I have a chronic illness and usually when something comes up on my tests the doctor will either ring me or if it’s a bit more serious the receptionist will ring me saying the doctor wants to see me. If nothing comes up then they don’t tell me at all and I don’t know until I ring up to enquire after waiting about a week. So no news is definitely good news!

Usually when I do this the receptionist will say “all fine” or that they can’t discuss them with me and then I know something has come up.

3 weeks here, from biopsy to cancerous cell notification.

Most departments have a protocol for chest x rays. Usually an alert is raised for either a CT scan or a follow up x Ray to the referer if an abnormality is found. If cancer is suspected they will also go onto tracking. How long this takes varies from trust to trust but most departments will try to report GP films quickly. Other tests, for example a scan done via a hospital consultant would probably have an alert on them for the referer to act urgently and contact the patient. Again varies, as some departments are fully digital, some not. If an abnormality was life threatening /potentially catastrophic consequences, a phone call would be made. Don't know as much about blood tests but urgent ones are phoned /communicated to whoever requested the test.

6.5 weeks after an MRI was done here before the consultant called to tell me my dd has a cyst in her brain and that urgent neurosurgery referrals were needed!

I had a chest x-ray recently and was told results would be one week, and it was, and all clear.

They're doing more of them at the moment, largely to make sure those presenting with long Covid have that and nothing more sinister.

Usually the person doing the X-ray isn't trained to diagnose so it has to go to the right person, who is possibly seeing more than usual.

I was quite persistent with the one who did mine and she admitted she could see nothing obvious, so it's more than possible that if anything obvious is noticed then that X-ray is pushed up in priority.

Most people are fine of course but it's still a worry obviously.

Best of luck to your relative hope she's ok.

Shit @AndThatsNotRight we cross posted but no that's not right!

It's outrageous, hope your daughter is ok.

Blood test results - over a week, then a call to come into surgery.

Had blood tests in September, was only told of an issue last week. Now I've got 3 different tests, and 3 different referrals

@moofolk

Shit *@AndThatsNotRight* we cross posted but no that's not right!

It's outrageous, hope your daughter is ok.

Thank you x

Neurosurgery decided this week that unless her symptoms change the risk of having her in hospital is greater than the risk of leaving it for now- so we have to wait 6 months

Recent experience here! Routine blood test fri 6th. GP receptionist called Monday asking me to speak to doctor that afternoon.

My GP practice always says if there’s a problem they will call.

But your family could call the surgery and ask for news to reassure her.

Last year DH had a routine blood test at our local clinic on a Friday morning on the Sunday evening we had a phone call from the On duty Doctor at our local hospital asking how DH was as he had the results of his blood test and there was a big problem with his liver. He asked would we like him to come out and see DH we said no he was fine so said if he felt at all unwell in the night call 999 as they would be able to look him up on their system anyhow he had already made him appointment to see our GP first thing in the morning to say we were shocked was an understatement. GP arranged hospital appointment that week scans turned out fine the outcome was the level of enzymes in his liver were really high that is usually an indication of liver cancer it turned out the the statins he was on caused all the problems. I had already Googled on the Sunday all the tablets he took and there was a research in the USA that in some people can cause raised levels of enzymes in his liver so he didn't take any more after that day.

Months. They forgot to call me due to lockdown in March.

If ever we saw a ‘nasty’ on a chest X-ray , we would have it reported on immediately and send it urgently to whoever requested it. The reporting consultant would request an urgent CT scan at the same time So the patient would receive an appointment letter for that in a couple of days after the X-ray.

I had a phone call within hours of bloods to tell me to go straight to hospital. Luckily the doctor I saw after bloods sent me straight there anyway so I was reading the message from a hospital bed post surgery!

my ex recently had a chest x-ray as he had a persistent cough and was losing weight.

he was admitted immediately after the x-ray - he’d broken a rib dropping a bit of a truck engine on his chest which had in turn punctured a lung which had then developed an abscess.

they literally sent him from x-ray to A&E once his x-ray had been read, where he was then admitted for 10 days of a chest drain and IV antibiotics. he’s fine now, he was just an idiot for not going sooner (he’d had the injury about 4 weeks previously but ‘walked it off’!).

so in this case the result was immediate. i hope your friend is ok.

When I had my gallstones I knew they'd found something when I was told that my doctor would contact me in a couple of days. They also found a huge kidney stone.

Within 24 hours for me. I’d say if it was anything nasty she’d hear pretty quickly but she could give them a ring just in case.

I think her concern is that although it was done Tuesday just gone, covid might mean they just haven't reported anything serious to her yet.
With that said, this thread on the whole has been very reassuring and it does appear that doctors do not wait around to reveal bad news. I will certainly show her all your responses and hope that it eases her anxiety somewhat. Thank you very much for the replies.

I had a strange result in a serious blood test - a slightly ambiguous result that was likely to be a minor false positive, could have meant something extremely serious & required an immediate retest. I was not contacted for weeks. My GP desperately one evening having clearly just spotted it, she sounded like she was utterly bricking it as it was obvious I ought to have been contacted before. Fortunately, I knew from other medical details that it was near impossible for it to be the serious thing. The retest confirmed there was no issue & I let it drop because my GP was extremely apologetic and I had never had other issues with the practise. Everyone makes occasional mistakes.

Our surgery has form for losing test samples and/or results, so I would always check.