We continue to hear from practices about out of area/tertiary providers asking GPs to request/arrange blood tests on their behalf.
To be clear: the responsibility for making the request and dealing with the results lies with the requesting clinician and hospital team, not the GP practice.
Local pathology providers have confirmed they will process samples from tertiary hospitals provided that they receive accompanying documentation that:
- Clearly identify the requesting clinician, their department, and hospital or organisationInclude a direct contact route for results to be returned, ideally an email address and or telephone number
- Specify clearly which tests are being requested
- Contain sufficient clinical and patient information to make the request valid and actionable
This does not have to be on a printed hospital pathology form. A letter or other document is equally valid, provided the details are sufficient. Where documentation is missing or incomplete, the sample will not be processed.
Some out of area/tertiary providers have raised issues around not being able to print forms. While we understand the frustration, this is a problem for the requesting organisation to resolve with their own IT and pathology teams. It is not appropriate for GP practices to workaround this.
We have drafted a template letter that practices can use to respond to out of area/tertiary hospitals.