Blood test, Can I refuse it?

[imiami]

I have just done a blood test in A&E, they printed the result, blood has no problem, in 2 days, my GP asked me to do the blood test again, GP said they cannot access my blood test result, but I have given the paper result from A&E in front of her, now my GP clinic called me, they said I have to do the blood test, otherwise they cannot do CT scan for me.
a few months ago, when I refused the blood test in a good manner, a GP looks angry, I know the blood test won't show anything, I did lots of blood test.
Why?

I read a article shows: One in four blood tests in general practice may be unnecessary

You have every right to refuse a blood test, but the GP may refuse to send you for a scan if you don't. But you could try and get to the bottom of why the can't access your results on the system in the first instance.

Yes you can refuse a blood test but why would you if it expediates you accessing a scan? Personally, I would just get it done.

I'd ask the hospital tonresend the results to your GP and confirm the results they already have are accurate.

A&E records quite often don’t make their way from secondary to primary care. And in any case, they might not have tested for the same things that you need data for before the scan - they might have tested for something they suspected due to your acute condition at the time, but something else needs to be tested for in order to inform the scan.

I don’t understand why you’d jeopardise your opportunity to have a diagnostic scan by refusing a blood test, which will take just a few minutes. Is there more behind this?

Sadly, this is common with the fragmented and inefficient NHS. My DH has cancer and gets the same runaround between the hospital oncology dept and his GP surgery. They simply are incapable of direct communication, meaning DH constantly has to have second blood tests ordered via the GP surgery to confirm the blood test results done in oncology before they will take the actions requested by the oncologist. DH is constantly "piggy in the middle" having to make an appointment with the GP to tell the GP what the oncologist has said, and then the GP needs his own tests before he decides whether to do what has been asked or not, whether it's a prescription for drugs, a referral for a x-ray or scan, etc. The oncologist will only do what's directly resulting from the cancer or chemotherapy, so "side effects" or other ailments (possibly caused by the cancer or chemotherapy) get referred back to the GP to sort out. It's absolute madness that the different parts of the NHS don't seem to have any common communication/information sharing platform. Not just GPs though. After his first round of chemo, he was referred to a specialist cancer hospital for the second round, and when he went for his first consultant appointment, the consultant literally only had a single A4 sheet of paper in the file being a generic "this pleasant gentleman" referral with sparse detail as to his condition and treatment. First thing the consultant did was re-order all the tests, full skeletal x-ray, bone marrow extraction, full body MRI/CT scans, full blood tests, etc. When we said he'd already had all that 2 or 3 times with the first hospital, the consultant just shrugged and said it was "easier" to do them all again with results pinged back to him rather than constantly chase copies/scans from the first hospital! Utter stupidity!

It's not for you to police or try and control the inefficient systems in place within the NHS.
It might be a complete shambles, but you as an individual being awkward to a GP who is following their given process isn't going to help.

If you want the CT scan, get the blood test done.

Is this 2026 or 1926 ?

How on earth can the UK spend so much on NHS IT and still be happy that no one ever seems to be able to access any test result from another facility ?

I learned a long time ago to take photos and screenshots when I am in a consult because invariably the next doctor will not be able to see my results.

Of course that can't deal with the results they manage to lose (about 1 in 4 times over 20 years).

E2A:

It's not for you to police or try and control the inefficient systems in place within the NHS.

Depends on how quickly you want to get better.

Agree. I think the article OP read is likely about people presenting to the GP with non-specific symptoms and the GP doing a blood test to reassure the patient. Massive problem. If you want a particular scan then you’re unlikely to get it unless you do as suggested (usually based on NICE guidelines).

Of course you can decline the blood test.

Do you need the scan? If you do then probably best to just have the blood test, isn’t it?

Why would you be deliberately difficult?
If you want the scan, have the test. If you don't, then don't. The GP is busy enough without troublemakers making trouble.

If the bloods were done in the same Trust that the scan is being done at, included the right tests (U&E), were normal and there’s no chance they could have deteriorated then repeating them does seem unnecessary (you can probably just let the radiology dept know by phoning them). If you don’t know/the answer to those questions is ‘no’ then you would need the tests repeating before the scan. If you decide not to proceed with the tests/scan then it’s best to cancel so someone else can have the slot.

Yes you can refuse, but why do that if you want the scan? Not all blood tests looks for the same things so it might be that what they need to see isn’t there or that the blood work needs to be done within a certain timeframe from the scan etc.

It's for all of us to police it. It's misuse of public money arising feom unnecessary duplication. The NHS is partly in the mess it is because of ingrained gratitude

You haven’t really said why you want to gate keep your access to a scan, which presumably you need. You have presented to medics, why did you do that if you don’t want to follow through on the investigations? Your body, your choice and all that bit it sounds a bit ‘cutting your nose off’

Is it exactly the same blood tests? Point of care bloods in A and E are for their immediate use and may differ. Were they included on your discharge summary?

They did spend a lot of money but they never finished the integration project and it was abandoned... over a decade ago. I could never understand why they didn't just pick an existing system and rolled it out across all trusts. Reinventing a wheel comes to mind.

Not Invented Here.

There is also the fact that because the NHS has been forced to buy in US systems (corruption is a strong word, but warranted) then every single feature is a premium. So if you want your nice shiny MRI scanner (for example) to be able to send it's data to another location (even in the same trust if the salesperson was on top of their game) then you have to pay the extra annual subscription.

Sounds like crap procurement again then, just like PFI. Don't the procurement managers understand concepts such as shopping around, negotiation/haggling, etc?

If they don't do any of that, then I wonder why the hell it takes such a long time to get anything organised via procurement. I spent so much money buying small equipment for patient rehabilitation on Amazon because 10 times out of 10 going via procurement results in items being delivered long after a patient has been discharged.