Mr Justin Oakley

WDTK

Dear Mr Oakley,

Freedom of Information Act

Provision of Information request - 418 Mortuary information

I acknowledge receipt on 17 August 2009 of your request dated that day. I apologise for the delay in replying

You asked the following questions, and my response is set out below.

This request relates to the communication process to be adopted by

the hospital back to a GP when it does not have the expertise or

contract in place to administer the treatment detailed on a GP

referral.

Is a communication back to the GP mandatory?

How would this communication normally be made?

What safeguards have Bedfordshire Hospital NHS Truat put in place

to ensure that this communication is effective?

Is a receipt confirmation from the GP received and recorded by the

hospital.

If the communication is not received and a patients health

deteriorates considerably because of this then what should be done

and whose responsibility is it to address the issue?

Under the choose and book system, the patient chooses the hospital to which he wishes to be referred, from the available menu. This situation should therefore not arise. If when a consultant saw the referral, or a patient in consultation and decided that different/ greater expertise was required than (s)he had, the consultant would reply accordingly to the GP. There should, under our contract with the PCT, be a letter to the referring GP after a consultation. To minimize the risk of such letters going astray, we are developing an electronic system. If a GP does not receive a letter, they would normally contact the hospital to request one.

The GP is responsible for a patient's care, but may seek a consultant opinion where this is considered appropriate. There is more on how the system works on the NHS Choices website.

Please note that the information provided is the property of Bedford Hospital NHS Trust and subject to Intellectual Property and Database Rights. Any commercial application or use of this information may be subject to the provisions of the Re-use of Public Sector Information Regulations 2005. This means that if you wish to re-use the information provided for commercial purposes for any reason you must ask us for permission to do so. Should we agree that you can use the information it will be subject to the issue of a licence which may or may not involve a fee. If you have any questions about this process please contact me.

The information supplied to you continues to be protected by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. You are free to use it for your own purposes, including any noncommercial research you are doing and for the purposes of news reporting. Any other reuse, for example commercial publication, would require the permission of the copyright holder. Most documents supplied by Bedford Hospital NHS Trust will have been produced by government officials and will be Crown Copyright. You can find details on the arrangements for re-using Crown Copyright on HMSOnline at:

http://www.hmso.gov.uk/copyright/licences/click-use-home.htm

Information you receive which is not subject to Crown Copyright continues to be protected by the copyright of the person, or organisation, from which the information originated. You must ensure that you gain their permission before reproducing any third party (non Crown Copyright) information.

If you propose to manipulate this data, it would be appreciated if you would seek confirmation from the Trust that the analyses thus created are not misleading in any way.

If you have any further queries, do please come back to me.

Yours sincerely,

Alan Dickinson

Freedom of Information Office

Date 12/10/2009

Contact details:

Direct Line: 01234 795901

Fax No. 01234 218106

Email: [email address]

Kempston Road

Bedford

MK42 9DJ

Telephone: 01234 355122