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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. They’ll decide if a referral is clinically necessary.
There are some specialist services that you can use without talking to a clinician first. This is known as self-referral.
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.
You’ll get a text message to access your referral letter, usually within 2 weeks, or sooner if it’s urgent.
The letter will include your referral details, where you have been referred to and how to arrange your appointment.
We’ll use the phone number we have on record for you. You can check and update this in the app. If we can’t send you a text message, we’ll post the referral letter to you.
The way you arrange your appointment is different, depending on:
Your referral letter will have details on where you have been referred to and how to arrange your appointment.
Hospitals use different ways of arranging appointments:
You can use the NHS e-Referral service to:
To access the service, you’ll need:
For updates on your referral appointment, check your referral online or contact the service directly. We are unable to check for updates on your behalf.
If you need help using the service, you can phone the NHS e-Referral Service line on 0345 608 8888.
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.
For updates on your referral appointment, contact the service directly. We are unable to check for updates on your behalf.
Psychiatry UK's services can be very busy and there may be long wait times to get an appointment. If you've been referred for adult ADHD services, Psychiatry UK will usually contact you within 4 weeks but it can take longer. We recommend checking their website for the latest updates: https://psychiatry-uk.com/right-to-choose/. We are unable to check for updates on your behalf.
After referring yourself to a service for specialist care, they’ll contact you directly with details on what to do next.
For updates on your referral, contact the service directly.
Whilst we are in the process of making your referral, we will keep you updated in the app.
Please also 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 app as this is the address communications will be sent to.
Once you’ve received your referral letter, 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.
We are unable to chase or arrange an earlier appointment on your behalf.
Usually, a service or hospital will reject a referral if they feel:
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 eMed 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.
During your appointment, you can ask the GP for a private referral which will be emailed 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 contact us. We’ll cancel your NHS referral and issue you a private referral instead.
You might get a letter from the specialist to give to your clinician.
If you do, send a copy of the letter using our contact form and we’ll add it to your medical records.
You’ll need to include:
You won’t see information about your treatment in the app, but we’ll add the information to your medical record so clinicians can see it.
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 talk through your results with you.
Call your specialist directly if you haven’t got your results or you have questions about them.
You can now check the status of your referral via the eMed app by following the instructions below:
Open the eMed app
Go to the ‘Care tab’
Find your previous appointment
Tap ‘Referral’ and the details will appear on the next screen
If you have turned on your push notifications, you will receive a notification each time an update is made to your referral.
If you are the Account Owner, you can also view the referral status of any dependants/children you might have on your account.
Note: Only referral updates from 13th December 2022 onwards will be visible in app.