In England NHS patients have the right to request to move to a different hospital to receive their care/treatment if they have been waiting longer than 18 weeks.
We are first reaching out to those who have been waiting 40+ weeks for a first outpatient appointment or surgery. We are asking them whether they wish to move hospital to receive earlier care/treatment. This initial cohort excludes:
- patients under 18 years
- those referred from another hospital
- patients with a date for their appointment/operation before 31 December 2023.
Please note, by making a request to move your care to another hospital, your entire pathway of care will be moved. This includes all appointments, any required treatment/surgery and any follow-up care.
You may have been referred to the hospital by your GP or another community clinician and are waiting for your first appointment. You may have been seen at the hospital already and are awaiting an operation.
If a patient requests to move, every effort will be made to identify an alternative hospital. However, it might not be clinically appropriate to move to a different hospital in some cases. Alternative capacity may also not be available at the time. In these circumstances, you will remain on the waiting list at CUH. You will be contacted as soon as an appointment becomes available.
Patients are being contacted via text message and postal letter (for those patients who we do not have a mobile number on record or have requested they are not contacted by text) as part of this work. The SMS text message will show in your messages as CUH NHS UK and is a legitimate text message from the hospital.
You will be contacted by text. Those who have requested not to receive texts will be sent a postal letter. The SMS text message will show in your messages as CUH NHS UK and is a legitimate text message from the hospital. The text message/letter will have information on which department you are waiting to be seen by. There will also be a link to the national Patient Choice portal.
If you want to be considered for treatment elsewhere, please click the link and fill out the form. The information will be sent to the relevant team, who will check if it's okay for you to move to another hospital. There will also be a national helpline number included. This is for if patients have any queries about the process or are unable to access the link.
Please read through the questions and answers below for more information.
No, some patients may respond immediately – others may take weeks to decide that they wish to opt in. There are no restrictions
As part of the scheme, you could be treated at either an NHS hospital or an independent hospital. You will not incur any additional costs if you decide to move to an independent provider.
If an alternative provider is identified, you will be asked if you would like to proceed. Next steps will then be discussed.
If you proceed with moving to an alternative provider, you will be discharged from CUH care and removed from our waiting list. You will not be able to transfer your care back to the hospital.
If you opt to receive treatment by another provider, you will remain under CUH care until an alternative has been found.
If you receive an appointment offer at CUH before another care provider is found, you can retract your decision and continue your care with us.
Once an alternative provider has been secured, your care pathway at CUH will stop.
We are unable to determine exactly when you will be offered an appointment/treatment at CUH. Eligible patients will have been waiting over 40 weeks, and will not have a confirmed appointment before 31 December 2023.
If an alternative provider isn’t found, you will remain in your current position on the waiting list at CUH. You will receive an appointment as soon as one is available.
You are invited to submit your details into the PIDMAS system and select the hospital you are currently with (CUH). You will be asked for consent to share your details with alternative care providers. For example, other hospitals and the Integrated Care Board.
Once you have consented, your details will be used to review whether it is appropriate for you to move to an alternative care provider.
You will be told if an alternative care provider has been found or not within 5-6 weeks of starting the process.
If you are not clinically appropriate to move to an alternative provider, we will let you know within 2-3 weeks.
No, patients will be under the care of the chosen provider until they are discharged. This includes any subsequent appointments.
There is the existing NHS Travel Reimbursement Scheme. This can be used if patients opt to receive care and treatment by an alternative care provider.
The first phase of this approach is focusing on patients who have been waiting over 40 weeks for treatment.
The offer will be widened in a phased approach over the coming months.
We will be including patients under the age of 18 in a future cohort, as part of a phased approach.
Please note that this contact is in addition to any communications you may receive regarding whether you still require your appointment/procedure.
We would like to assure you that:
- Our communication will only ever ask questions relating to your care
- We will never ask for bank details or make reference to money or payment
- We will never ask you for your name or address. Please note you may need to provide personal details if you are creating a new NHS login or contacting the national helpline to submit a request. You will be asked particular information relating to your request.
- Our message will only include a link to the national Patient Choice website and our hospital website.