Consultant vs GP

[bubbea]

Hi there,

My history is wayyyy to complicated to go into detail - summary type 2 diabetes, 2 large ovarian cysts removed, pcos, lots of concern over bleeding between periods and after sex etc!!

Anyway last week I had a gyne appointment at the hospital due to some irregular bleeding I had, when going through my notes she said when I was last seen in 2016 it was said in the note back to Gp to refer my to a sub fertility clinic, when I see the gp they said due to bmi being high I would not get an appointment. When the consultant wound up this appointment she said she would re iterate how important these appointments are and that the gp should refer me again.

I feel/ know that this is going to get me know where but made me think who has the final say over your care a specialist consultant or your gp???

 

[Akua]

So a specialist consultant has more authority over your care decisions, however if your gp won’t refer you, then you can’t access the clinic. That’s because of the way hospitals are funded: it must be a gp that refers you otherwise the clinic won’t get paid for seeing you or treating you. Hence why the consultant can’t refer you herself, or why you can’t self refer.

It’s possible that because the gp does referrals to this clinic regularly he’s aware of criteria required to get referred whereas the consultant might not be? It’s not unusual for sub-fertility clinics to not accept referrals for women with a raised bmi unfortunately.