What to include in a referral
The information that makes a referral straightforward to process, and the omissions that most often send one back.
What a referral generally carries
The administrative content of a referral is broadly consistent across specialist services: the patient's full name, date of birth and NHI; current contact details; the referring practice and a name to reply to; and a clear statement of what is being asked for.
When one of those is missing, somebody has to write back and ask before anything else can happen.
Imaging and prior correspondence
If imaging has been done, say where and when, and send the report rather than only the images. A report is readable immediately; a disc has to be loaded.
If the patient has been seen elsewhere for the same problem, previous correspondence saves repeating work. If they have not, saying so explicitly is more useful than leaving the field blank — a blank field is ambiguous, and somebody has to resolve the ambiguity.
The omission easiest to miss
A referral that describes a situation without saying what is being asked for takes a further exchange to resolve, and that is the omission least likely to be noticed when writing one.
A single sentence is enough. What has been tried, and what you would like to happen next.
A note on this page
This page describes the administrative content of a referral — identifiers, contact details, what to attach — in the general terms that hold across specialist services. It does not say when to refer, what to look for, or how to decide: those are clinical questions and this page deliberately does not answer them. Nor does it state this practice's requirements, preferred channel or turnaround, because a fictional practice has none.
This is a fictional demonstration site. The referral form on the referrers page does not submit anywhere.
This website does not provide medical advice. It is a design demonstration, not a source of clinical information.