Referrals

Overview

A clinician might refer you to a specialist at a hospital or community service for further care, or to investigate your symptoms further.

For most referrals, you’ll need to speak to a clinician first (although some services do accept self-referrals). They’ll decide if a referral is clinically necessary. After your appointment, you’ll be sent a referral letter with details on how to arrange your appointment usually via email, SMS, or post to your registered details.

See the NHS England leaflet about what happens when you’re referred by your GP to see a specialist.

Arranging your referral appointment

We will send you your referral letter. This will include your referral details, where you have been referred to and how to arrange your appointment. This will usually be sent to you within two weeks, sooner if it is urgent.

The way you arrange your appointment is different, depending on:

• if you’ve been referred to a specialist at a hospital
• if you’ve been referred to a specialist at a community service
• if you’ve completed a self-referral

Referrals to a hospital

Your referral letter will have details on where you have been referred to and how to arrange your appointment. We will aim to refer you to the most appropriate hospital local to where you live.

Hospitals use different ways of arranging appointments:

• You may get a reference number and password to book and manage your appointment online using the NHS e-Referral Service or over the phone.
• You may receive a letter from the hospital confirming your appointment. You need to reply as soon as possible and tell the hospital if you can attend on the date offered.
• Alternatively, the hospital may contact you to arrange an appointment or ask you to contact them.

Referrals to a community service

For Community Services, such as Mental Health and Physiotherapy, the provider will contact you directly about your appointment. This will usually be within 2 weeks but it can take longer. For urgent referrals, you should be contacted by the provider within 1 week.

Your referral letter will have details on where you have been referred to and how to contact them.

Many communuity services will only accept referrals from GPs in their local area. This may mean that we need to refer you to a service in Hammersmith and Fulham and may not be able to refer you to a service in your local area if you live elsewhere. This is outside of our control.

Who to contact for an update on your referral

Whilst we are in the process of making your referral, please look out for any messages from us as, depending on the service we are referring you to, we may need some further information from you and in some cases will not be able to process your referral until we have received this.

Please also check your address in the NHS App as this is the address that we and other providers will use to send you any communications.

Once you’ve received your referral letter or booked your appointment, you should contact the hospital or service directly for updates. Their details will be on your letter. If you booked your referral appointment using the NHS e-Referral Service you can check the status of your referral online. You’ll need your reference number and password or access code. This will be on your referral letter. You may also be able to view and manage your referral in the NHS App.

Unfortunately, we are unable to chase or arrange an earlier appointment on your behalf.

Self-referrals

Some services allow or require you to refer yourself. Your Clinician will explain this to you if this applies to your referral, and explain how to do this.

Rejected referrals

Usually, a service or hospital will reject a referral if they feel:

• their service is not suitable for you
• there are more suitable alternative referral options
• they need more information

We’ll let you know if your referral has been rejected and what to do next, usually by text message. If you see a message in the NHS App stating your referral has been rejected, please wait for us to contact you. Our team will need to review the rejection before letting you know what to do next.

Private referrals

During your appointment, you can ask the GP for a private referral which will then be sent to you. You can then take this to an external private hospital.

If you have already received an NHS referral and decide you want to go to a private hospital or specialist, please get in touch. We’ll cancel your NHS referral and issue you a private referral instead.

After your referral appointment

Your Specialist will usually send us a summary of your consultation once it has been completed.

It can take up to 2 months for us to get this information, depending on the type of treatment and how urgent it is.

If you had a test as part of your referral, the specialist should arrange to talk through your results with you. 

If you have not received your results or you have questions about them, you should contact your Specialist directly. Results from tests arranged by Hospitals and other third parties are not sent automatically to GPs, so unfortunately we are not able to provide these results to you.