GP won't give me a copy of my referral letter

[CherryBlossom38]

Hi everyone, just wondered if anyone could give me some advice please!

I was referred by my GP a few weeks ago as an urgent referral (but not on the 2WW pathway) for a dermatology appt. I got an appointment through on the NHS for 8th August, and as I'm really worried I don't want to wait that long. I pay for Benenden who can provide me with a private appt in the next 2 weeks, they just need a copy of my GP referral letter.

I called the GP surgery thinking this would be an easy task! The receptionist was rude and told me I can't have a copy, they would need to send it to a specific hospital. I explained I don't want another NHS hospital and need to send it to Benenden myself with all my membership details. She spoke to the secretary and they said I can't have a copy as it's their own surgery template and I will need an appt with the doctor to get another letter typed up. I said OK to a telephone consult...earliest one is next Friday!!!

I'm losing my mind with worry and just want to be seen as the GP originally told me it needs an urgent referral, going an extra week and then another week for it to be processed is giving me such anxiety. Surely I can have a print out of my own referral letter?? Any advice greatly appreciated x

Hi I also have Benenden. What I did was I emailed the surgery main email address and asked for the request for a referral to be passed on to the GP who saw me previously.

I then had a text from the GP a few days later asking for the insurance company name and for my email address to send me the referral.

So I would try and get in touch with the GP either this way, or by asking for the name of the GPs medical secretary.

Failing that I would email or call the practice manager. Best of luck, I have found Benenden really good.

Don't they have to give you letters regarding your own health care if you ask for them? Not sure but think there is a Freedom of Information Act which means they can't withhold this information from you 🤔

I think what they mean about the template is that with the NHS they have this direct template for sending referrals?

So they would need an actual letter for Benenden to authorise, In case that helps any. I think they are busy atm maybe why they are being a bit abrupt.

But I found just being polite and persistent gets you there in the end.

I am sorry you are not well.

I think some of the issue here is the misunderstanding about the nature of an nhs referral. The nhs “referral” may well not be a physical letter but an email or an online electronic form so it wouldn’t be possible to print it off for you. The nhs 2 week wait referrals are also very “tick box” and aren’t actually a letter with “dear specialist, please see cherry urgently for x, regards Dr GP” but a selection of different drop downs about certain symptoms. The referral form is produced by the nhs hospital for the GPs to fill in, it may have information on it that the nhs hospital would not wish to share with the private hospital - not your health information but details about their service they wouldn’t want to share with the “competition”. The nhs hospital may also already have acsess electronically to certain bits of your health record (depending on where you live)such as your current medications and past medical history so they might not be attached to the referral but would need to be added to a private referral manually.

All this means for a private referral the GP will need to write a separate letter.Writing this letter is a non nhs service so there may be a charge.

The reason they want to know the hospital is that the GP has a professional duty from the GMC to ensure that any referral they make is to a competent professional or provider - they can’t write a “to whom it may concern” letter, but usually can write one to the insurance company if they can’t write to a private doctor directly.

you can probably request a copy of the nhs referral in whatever format it is in by requesting a copy of your notes under FOI but as I explained above this referral probably won’t meet the needs of your insurance company.