Gps Favouring Hospitals

[bainbrig]

Any ideas why GP's surgeries should try and get their patients to go to one hospital rather than another? We have two, almost equidistant 'big' hospitals. One is five miles through pleasantish urban roads, the other is five miles down the North Circular, through an industrial estate, down a notoriously jammed-up road.

We have been going to the more local hospital for 40 years, but lately the GP has been making appointments at the other one, which we then either have to attend, or spend time and effort getting switched.

Do they get referral money? The 'other' hospital is a huge flagship hospital, architect-designed (and you know what THAT means for the poor *** trying to get round it). The treatment is the same, of course.

So why do GPs not just ask, "Where would you rather go?"

BB

[dannyk13]

They don't need to ask. You have the right to choose which hospital you want,

[pixie374]

They do here... They automatically put you down for the "closest" but if you tell them a different one is easier to get to, they use that instead.

[dannyk13]

https://www.nhs.uk/using-the-nhs/about-the-nhs/your-choices-in-the-nhs/

[Sqad]

You see your GP for an opinion.diagnosis, treatment and management and the latter would involve to which hospital you should be referred.
The choice of that hospital would depend upon many factors based on your GP's experience, all in all to be of maximum benefit to his patient....in this case...YOU.

[dannyk13]

Sqad, nevertheless the choice of hospital is a patients right,

[Sqad]

danny....quite.
You don't have to take the Dr;s advice......in anything.

[dannyk13]

Sqad, that is an entirely different matter.

[Mamyalynne]

Always best to discuss any choices when a GP mentions a referral, that way if there is a choice of hospitals that offers the speciality you need you can work from there.

[Old_Geezer]

If one has a right to choose how come, a few years back, the NHS kept sending me suggested appointment dates/times for the hospital that I had insisted was too far away, and which they'd agreed not to choose; and then them eventually lying, saying that I'd cancelled 3 appointments so they weren't going to offer another when we'd yet to agree on/accept even a first one ? Clearly this choice thing can't be true. Clearly they go out their way to not treat patients.

[Sqad]

danny....I don't understand your reply........why is it a different matter?

[dannyk13]

OG, Read my link.Maybe what happened to you was before the NHS introduced this choice,

[woofgang]

Gp’s dont get referral money but there may be a block contract with one hospital which means that each patient seen there costs less.

[dannyk13]

Sqad, I would always heed any medical advice given by my GP, but I would maintain my right to choose the hospital if it was necessary that I had to attend one.

[Sqad]

danny...I agree.

[bainbrig]

Sqad: did you come across this 'block contract' business that Woofgang refers to?

[Sqad]

bainbrigg......I have no experience of this as I was a Consultant and not on the referring side of the counter.

[retrocop]

GP's now,apparently, do have to ask the patient if they have a preferred hospital to be referred to. Of course the doctorwill know if the hospital has the correct dept for the patient's needs. Last week I ws at The Royal Brompton Hospital, Fulham Rd. There were several nearer my home but could not do a Myocardio Perfusion.
I asked my GP for a referral to an Audiologist recently and stressed I did not wish to attend my nearest hospital St Helier Carshalton but would go to Queen Mary's Roehampton Audiology. The GP said her secretary would arrange it. A week later I received an appointment date for St Helier. I went to the Surgery and politely told her that I required the Audiology at Queen Marys.She replied that there was no Audiology Dept at Queen Marys. I informed her there most certainly is and my wife worked in Endoscopy next door to Audiology and had seen it. We compromised and I went to Epsom General Audiology.
The problem was Queen Mar's is part of the same Trust as Kingston hospital and if the secretary contacted Kingston they would of given me an appointment to their Audiology Dept at Queen Mary's.:-)

[bainbrig]

Thanks sqad.

I suspect that the 'push' to get patients to go to the Central Middlesex Hospital in Park Royal might be to do with the tens (hundreds?) of millions the new building cost, and that now the Trust is making sure it's well used. It really is an awful place for a patient - huge, cavernous corridors that stretch for hundreds of yards, for very little reason. I (disabled, old, not too well) had to walk from one clinic (stuck on the end of the vast building) all the way to the other end to queue up for a prescription! No supplied wheelchairs, of course.

Very pretty, very 'designery', but useless. The sort of place designed by people who were never going to be sick, and probably never going to use it even if they were.

BB

[retrocop]

Be pleased it wasn't West Middlesex. Not many used to walk out of there after a bad RTA. :-(

[woofgang]

bainbrig, it might be worth asking your GP why they refer where they do.