[Your Practice Letterhead]
[Date]
To: [Recipient Name]
Dear [Consultant / Hospital Colleague],
Re: Request to arrange investigations on behalf of your team
We have received a request to arrange [blood tests / investigations] for a patient under your care. As a general practice team, we must respectfully decline this request and explain our reasons for doing so.
Investigations initiated by hospital clinicians remain the clinical and medicolegal responsibility of the requesting team. General practice is not in a position to interpret or act upon test results that fall outside our current management of the patient. Where we do take the sample, we become responsible for following up the results — even if we are not the requesters — which is neither clinically appropriate nor safe.
We understand that some trusts face challenges with digital-only pathology systems or limited access to printers. However, these are internal operational issues that must be resolved within your organisation. It is not appropriate for this to result in an administrative or clinical workload transfer to general practice.
We have been advised by our Local Medical Committee that pathology providers in our area will accept samples accompanied by forms from any hospital, as long as they are appropriately completed and include clear details of the requesting clinician and department. This enables your team to issue a form directly to the patient and receive the result back securely, without involving general practice.
Where appropriate, our practice may be able to offer a phlebotomy appointment for the patient if they attend with a suitable hospital request form. However, we will not take responsibility for generating the request or managing the results.
We therefore ask that you kindly make arrangements to provide your patients with the necessary request forms, and ensure your team has appropriate access to the results.
Thank you for your understanding. Please do not hesitate to contact us if there are exceptional circumstances or if the patient’s care genuinely requires direct involvement from our team in arranging these tests.
Yours sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Your Position]
[Your Practice]
cc: [consultant responsible]
Template Letter: Request to arrange investigations on behalf of your team (14kB)