Getting the results of hospital tests

If you are seen in hospital, be that through A&E, as an inpatient, or in an outpatient clinic, you may have some tests the results of which you won’t get immediately. Understandably, patients often contact us, as their GP practice, to try to get hold of these results.

Unfortunately, we almost never have them. When a test is carried out, the result goes to the doctor who requested the test. This means that when a hospital doctor orders it, the result will go to them and only to them, and we only find out about that result if they write to us.

We therefore do not chase hospital tests for three main reasons:

• We often have no idea why a test was requested, nor what question the hospital doctor was trying to answer when they asked for it, nor in more specialist cases what should be done with a particular result.
• Administratively, we aren’t informed when a hospital doctor requests tests, and so we don’t know they exist to chase; from a workload perspective we aren’t funded or resourced to chase up tests ordered by hospitals.
• The British Medical Association, the National Patient Safety Agency (while it existed), the Ionising Radiation (Medical Exposure) Regulations, and the Royal College of Emergency Medicine all agree that the “duty of care” in chasing test results rests with the person requesting the test, i.e. that if a doctor asks for a test they need to chase up and act on the result themselves.

For these reasons, please contact the hospital where you had the tests run, and ask for the secretary of the doctor who saw you. They can obtain the results, or let you know when and how you will receive them. If you have any difficulty with the clinical team, ask for the hospital “PALS”, or Patient Advice and Liaison Service, who can chase them up on your behalf. Please try not to take up our receptionists’ time asking us to do this, as it is the hospital’s responsibility.

We are of course very happy to discuss your results with hospital doctors should they wish.

PALS numbers: