14. Responsibilities of specialists when patients are referred

 

      Doctors practising in most specialties should usually accept patients only with a referral from a general practitioner or other appropriate health care professional. However, in some areas of practice, for example, accident and emergency, genito-urinary medicine, contraception and abortion services and refraction, there may be good reasons for specialists to accept patients without a referral. Similarly, occupational health physicians, police surgeons and other doctors with dual responsibilities may accept patients for assessment or screening without a referral. If you accept a patient without a referral from the patient’s general practitioner, you must keep the general practitioner informed, provided you have the patient’s consent. If sensitive information is involved, you should
encourage patients to allow information to be passed to their general
practitioners, but you must not disclose information to a general practitioner unless the patient agrees. Except in emergencies or when it is impracticable, you should inform the general practitioner before starting treatment. If you do not tell the patient’s general practitioner, before or after providing treatment, you will be responsible for providing or arranging all after care which is necessary until another doctor agrees to take over. Information published about specialist services should include advice that
patients cannot usually be seen or treated by specialists, either in the NHS or private practice, without a referral, usually from a general practitioner. If you are a specialist you should do all that you can to see that a similar statement is included in any advertisement for specialist services issued by an organisation which you are associated with.

GMC Good Medical Practice, paragraphs 42, 43, 46

 

These GMC paragraphs outline what you should expect from specialists involved in the care of your patients, apart from a high standard of clinical care - which is described in other parts of Good Medical Practice. However, they are also relevant to private GPs, and may become more relevant to general practice if cross-referral between practices becomes more common.