A private provider is any hospital, clinic, counsellor, psychologist or consultant or any other organisation where you need to pay for the service provided to you.
PRIVATE REFERRALS
If you wish to be referred to a private provider by one of our GPs here at the surgery, you should note that you must select which private provider you wish to attend. We ask this because we need to remain unbiased and not choose one provider over another.
We can of course give you information, if we have it, of a choice of private providers should you not know where to go for the information.
NB; Any person can self-refer to a private provider without the input of a GP. To facilitate your self-referral, if you need it, we can supply a summary printout of your record free of charge to take with you to your appointment. PLEASE TELL THE RECEPTIONIST YOU NEED THE PRINTOUT ASAP TO ASSIST A PRIVATE REFERRAL or you could be waiting up to 28 days to process it.
If you are under a GP, and they have agreed with you that you need a referral, they will supply a referral letter for you to take to the private provider and you can then book your own appointment. This is free of charge.
INSURANCE FORMS REQUIRING COMPLETION BEFORE BEING SEEN If your insurer or private provider requires an insurance form completing before they can see you, we can fill out the form for you, but this will be chargeable and may take a few weeks to complete, in line with our current fees policy.
⚠GPs are under no professional or contractual obligation whatsoever to complete any hospital, organisation or other provider's referral proforma, whether NHS or private. For the avoidance of doubt, we will not complete any referral proformas for any private referral. Please also see section below regarding rejected referrals related to referral proformas. ⚠
TESTS AND/OR MEDICATIONS AFTER ATTENDANCE Please note that where GPs have made a referral to a private provider, whether this is at your own or at the GP's instigation, this does not obligate the GP to carry out any tests or prescribe any medications should these be requested by the private provider. Please see the section immediately below on investigations, medications and shared care.
TEST REQUESTS AND MEDICATION Contrary to popular belief, NHS GPs actually have no obligation to perform any investigations or prescribe any medications following attendance at a private provider. The following section describes each type of request in more detail.
INVESTIGATIONS NHS GPs are not obliged to perform or request any tests that are required as a result of a patient attending a private provider. This is especially so, if such a test falls outside ordinary care usually provided by the GP and where the interpretation of the result of such test would fall outside the GPs knowledge, skills and competence. Such tests can be requested and actioned by the private provider themselves.
MEDICATIONS Again, NHS GPs are not obliged to prescribe medications that are required because of a patient attending a private provider, nor are they required to convert privately issued prescriptions to a GP issued ones.
However, where such requested medications are within the scope of ordinary care from a GP and where we would normally issue such medications, we will consider such requests on an individual basis and if agreed, prescriptions will be processed in line with our usual medication process and timescale. It must be emphasised, if we choose to write an NHS script, it will be processed as non-urgent.
There are no circumstances in which we will issue urgent medications at the request of any hospital, private or otherwise . If your private provider indicates that you need your medication urgently, then in line with usual hospital processes, they must supply it directly themselves.
SHARED CARE MEDICATIONS Shared care is a process whereby responsibility for a patient's medication is shared between a GP and consultant. In such a situation, the consultant will assess a patient's suitability for the medication, perform any necessary baseline investigations and counsel the patient fully on the medication, before prescribing the medication and adjusting the dose until the patient is stable.
Once the patient is stable, the consultant then writes to the GP to ask them to consider shared care. If the GP accepts, they then take over the prescribing and monitoring of the patient, notifying the consultant should any problems arise. The patient must remain under the care of the consultant. For shared care to be valid, there must also be a written agreement on the duties and responsibilities of each party.
The whole process of shared care is to facilitate appropriate clinical oversight and to maintain patient safety, all in the patient's best interests.
Having said the above, it must be noted that shared care is entirely voluntary for GPs and GPs are NOT obliged to enter into shared care, for whatever reason.
In general, we do not participate in shared care arrangements with private providers. Specifically, we will not consider shared care arrangements if ANY of the following conditions apply (most of these describe situations that are, by definition, not shared care):
• There is no written shared care agreement NOT SHARED CARE
• There is a shared care agreement, but it does not match the equivalent NHS shared care agreement for the same cohort of patients NO EQUIVALENCE
• The private provider is an assessment or diagnosis only service, that is, it does not prescribe medication at all NOT SHARED CARE
• The private provider has not completed an appropriate assessment of patient's suitability for the medication, performed baseline investigations or provided counselling for the medication (for example, information on side effects, interactions) NOT SHARED CARE
• The private provider has not initiated the patient on medication and/or has not adjusted dosage accordingly and/or has not stabilised the patient on the medication NOT SHARED CARE
• The private provider has discharged the patient back to sole GP care NOT SHARED CARE
• The medication being recommended is one that falls outside the GP's knowledge, experience or competence to prescribe CANNOT PRESCRIBE
• The private provider is recommending use of medication that falls outside its licensed indications (for instance, it is being used for a different age group or different reason from the manufacturer's recommendations) NOT LICENSED
The reason why we do not consider prescribing medication in any of the above situations is that there is no proper specialist oversight and consequently patient safety is potentially at risk. Whilst it may seem convenient (and cheaper) to 'get a prescription from the GP', we will not enter into any arrangement that has the potential to put a patient at risk.
Follow this link to read the British Medical Association Guidance