How long does it take for a hospital referral?

[FluffyBunnyGoneBad]

Was (apparantly) faxed urgent by the GP on Monday. I called the hospital today to see if it was faster to go private but they have not recieved a referral from the GP yet. How long is the normal wait?

Really does depend. My last referral took 45minutes!

Ahh, I tried to phone the doctors surgery but no one was answering. She said she'd ax it as urgent as there were no appointments until June and she didn't want me to wait this long. I'm not sure what to do now.

It really does depend what ut us, Mine was for an acute problem which needed immediate exploratory tests.

If it was a referal for something less lifethreatening it could be 2-4weeks before you hear (I guess) several months before the actual appointments.

The probably a full scale of things in between...

it really depends what its for, if they have no appointments until june you may have to wait that long if you want to get seen privately you just find out the name of the person you want to see, ring the hospital they work from and make an appointment, get a copy of the referal from your doctor and take it with you.

Neurologist, possible MS, pins and needles in my feet. Not life threatening though. I'm a bit concerned that she said she'd fax it on Monday and they don't have anything yet. I'm impatient!

depends on the urgency-with a breast lump-referred on the thursday, seen the following tuesday.

Depends on what it's for. If you've not already done so, I would check with your gp that the referral did go through ok.
Some referrals have a specific time frame in which they have to go through (my gp surgery told me referrals for breast lumps result in appts within 2 weeks from date of referral for example) so you could find out what the time frame is for your particular issue.

Do I need to have more patience?

No, if you're concerned and were told it would be done urgently but the hospital haven't yet received anything, I would go back to the gp and ask. Good luck.

I know about the ?cancer 2 week deadline, normal for non urgent is 12 week wait, I don't know what urgent should be though IYSWIM.

DH waited 10 days for urgent referral for gastro-intestinal consultant.
Ask your GP to resend request because these sort of things very often get lost.

I'll try and call them again tomorrow. Am I supposto be checking up to see if the hospital has recieved this though. I wouldn't have phoned but would have made a private appointment if the wait was long.

Good luck

Thankyou

Faxes so often get lost it needs chasing. I found that a referral done within the same hospital from one consultant to another managed to get lost until I chased it

It's missing The department where the gp has faxed it is moving to another hospital and no one knows where it is. The GP's faxed another one. I wonder where this one will end up. This is getting past silly now.

Doh! Good thing you chased it up.
Hope it gets sorted soon.

Soo annoying. I can't get through to the other hospital, it's not on the system though. I've no idea where the new fax will end up.

I'd call the GP's secretary and be charming. Ask her to resend it? Alternatively, ask her the name of the neurologist you are being referred to and then call their secretary....

She's sent it again. I've no idea whom to though. They have built a new hospital where I live so they are in the process of transfering most of the old hospital to the new one. It's mega efficient to misplace an urgent referral hey!
The GP's secretay said the referral was not for one particular consultant and are only making appointments at the new hospital but there's no one picking the phone up. The referal would have been sent to the old hospital if this makes sense so it will still have to find it's way across the city.

I had post menopausal bleeding. Doctor faxed referral on Wednesday, it was received and actioned on Thursday. I got an appointment to see specialist on the Monday.

But it was a cancer fax referral, so it might have been actioned faster.

I called (again), the hospital have recieved neither referral faxes from the GP, the appointments woman said that I probably wouldn't get an urgent appointment for another 2-3 weeks from when they find the form, meaning it will take about a month for an urgent appointment. If it's not deemed as urgent it will be longer so I called the private hospital and have an appointment in 10 days as the consultants off next week. It seems rediculous to have to do this.

Thank goodness you know what's going on now.
There are so many cock-ups like this in hospitals. I'm glad you were able to chase it up.
Hope all goes well at the private appt. [very un-MN {hug}]

[Thanks] I feel quite bad being able to pay for the appointment when there are people worse off and probably more in need that will have to wait longer because they can't pay. I'm a healthcare student so it's usful to see the cockups from a patient perspective.