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Survey: Tell us about your experiences of unsafe, premature discharge
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Have you completed our latest survey on unsafe discharge from hospital?
We want to hear about times when someone has been discharged from hospital despite not being well enough to leave. If the person suffered harm as a result of this, or was at a real risk of harm, it was an unsafe discharge.
Too little research has been done on discharges that simply happened too early, even though we hear about this from callers to our helpline. If you think your experience, or the experience of someone close to you, matches this description of an unsafe, premature discharge, please share your experiences with us in this short survey.
We will be issuing a report, based on what people tell us. The survey should take around seven minutes to complete. Share your views here.
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From the helpline: obtaining a medical certificate
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This week we were contacted by Mark*, who got in touch following an appointment he had arranged at his GP surgery. Mark had recently been offered a new job and needed to provide a medical certificate before taking up the new position. He went to his local GP surgery and paid the £100 fee he was quoted for the consultation and certificate, but was unable to attend the appointment he had booked. Despite cancelling in advance, Mark’s GP practice refused to refund him the £100 and they also refused to arrange another appointment for him to see the doctor.
Mark wanted to find out more about his rights and how he should obtain the medical certificate he required for his new job.
Our helpline adviser informed Mark that GPs charge a fee for writing letters and compiling medical reports (eg for insurance providers, driving (DVLA), housing and benefit appeals, and employers), and that these services fall outside of the NHS GP contract. When medical reports are provided they are a private service and as such, have to be completed in the GP’s own time outside of their paid NHS working hours. These services incur a fee, which is set at the GP surgery’s discretion, although informed by the British Medical Association’s guidance. Our adviser suggested that Mark contacts NHS England to inform them of the situation and seek advice. We recommended that Mark get in touch with his local Citizens Advice Bureaux or an independent advice centre for information about how to recover his payment. We also suggested to Mark that he may wish to consider seeing a GP in the private sector to obtain the certificate he needs for his new job, and supplied him with the information to search for a doctor in the private sector.
We asked Mark to keep us updated on his progress, and to contact us if we could provide any additional information. If you need advice about any aspect of health and social care, you can contact our helpline on 020 8423 8999, or email helpline@patients-association.com. You can find out more about our helpline and advice service here.
*Name changed
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What our team is reading this week
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