Your guide to referring 

When referring patients to UCLH hospitals please ensure the following information is included:

  • Full practice information including full postal address, surgery practice code, safe haven fax number and email address
  • Patient’s full name and contact information
  • Patient’s daytime and evening contact numbers
  • Patient's email address
  • NHS number
  • Hospital number (if known)
  • Diagnostic test results
  • Relevant medical history
  • Any evidence of susceptibility to hospital-acquired infection.

Inter-provider transfers

If you are a:

  • Consultant at another trust
  • Health professional working at a referral management centre
  • GP with special interest working in intermediate care
  • Dentist working at a community dental service
  • Nurse practitioner working in secondary care
  • Allied health professional working in secondary care

We will need extra referral information from you for us to be able to treat your patient within 18 weeks:

  • All referrals should be followed by an inter-provider administrative Minimum Data Set form (MDS form). This tells us when you first received the referral for this patient and whether they have received first definitive treatment from you, which enables us to then treat the patient within the referral to treatment timescales.
Referral to treatment (RTT) targets

The NHS Constitution gives patients the right to access services within maximum waiting times, or for the NHS to take all reasonable steps to offer them a range of suitable alternative providers if this is not possible.

This right is a legal entitlement protected by law, and applies to the NHS in England. The maximum waiting times are described in the Handbook to the NHS Constitution.

To help us achieve this:

If you are a general practitioner or dentist:

  • Please outline to your patient that the time from referral by you to their treatment will be no more than 18 weeks. Your patient must be prepared to attend outpatient appointments, diagnostic tests and admission to hospital for treatment within this time.
  • If your patient is going away for two or more weeks consider referring them on their return, if their condition is not urgent
  • Use the NHS e-Referral Service (formally Choose and Book referrals)
  • Patients that make themselves unavailable within the timeframes or do not attend their appointments will be discharged back to your care.
  • Please make the patient aware that if they miss their appointment (DNA) they will be discharged back to your care.

Please send MDS forms to: ucl-tr.18weekmds@nhs.net
Fax: 020 3447 9374

Data Quality Team
University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
4th Floor East
250 Euston Road
London
NW1 2PG

Telephone:  020 3447 5777

Inter-provider administrative data transfer minimum data set form (MDS form)