Getting a referral to another consultant at a specialist hospital

[Coffeep]

Does anyone know if its possible to get a referral to another consultant at a specialist hospital?

My wife has been referred to my local hospital as an outpatient. Its a small hospital and the consultant isn't as specialist with her issue. He was nice enough and sent her for some blood tests and scans. I looked at him online and whilst he is an endocrinologist he didn't list thyroid problems as a speciality.

She wife has other autoimmune condition. There are a few hospitals in London which seem to have several consultants who specialise in thyroid issues and i think it would be better for her to see them.

However, how would she get seen by these specialists how she has started at the local hospital. Does anyone know? We wouldn't want to upset anyone or appear to be too demanding.

If it were me I would wait to see whether I was satisfied with the local service. It depends a lot on what the condition is, of course, so if it is something terribly unusual you might want to be seen by someone with a superspecialism. If you really feel you want to see this
Particular person , no one's toes will feel trodden on. The easiest way is to pay if they happen to have a private practice( not all consultants do) having already had scans and bloods done will help here as you won't have to pay for those as well . This doesn't mean that you won't have extra costs of course and if it is a condition that requires special investigations the bills can run up and at that point it would be rather cheeky to dick back into the NHS.Otherwise you can ask your GP to rerefer you to the specialist of your choice. This of course will incur some added delay. In theory this is possible but at the moment you might only be able to request a department of your choice as everyone is massively busy with long waiting lists in most specialties. This could easily mean that you see a another Dr and of course big teaching hospitals have a lot more junior staff so you might not get such a senior person. The other issue with large busy hospitals is that navigating communications can be tricky whereas a smaller department known to your GP can be more easily accessed for follow up advice etc. Your GP might be able to advise you as to their opinion of your named consultant for the particular clinical scenario.