Waiting on a letter nobody is chasing
Your adviser sees an employee with a complex condition and decides she needs information from the treating GP before she can advise the employer properly. The employee signs a consent form. An administrator writes to the surgery with the questions and the consent, and a note about the fee. Then the case waits.
Weeks later, HR asks what is happening. The administrator who sent the request has moved to another contract. Nobody knows whether the surgery received it, whether they have asked for the fee first, or whether the employee has since asked to see the report before it is sent, as they may be entitled to do.
Why outside reports stall
Requesting a report from a treating doctor is a small legal and administrative process in its own right. The steps are simple, but they involve people outside your service, and they are usually tracked in a notes field and an administrator's memory.
- The employee's consent, and any choice they made about seeing the report first, is on a paper form.
- Requests go by post or email to surgeries with no acknowledgement.
- Surgeries may ask for payment before writing, and that request lands in a general inbox.
- Chasing depends on someone remembering.
- The clinician does not know the case is stalled until HR complains.
The employee's rights around the report, and how your service handles them, are for your clinicians and advisers to set. The practical problem is that the steps around them are not tracked at all.
The cost of a stalled request
The employee's case stalls, sometimes for months. The employer sees an open case and no progress. Your turnaround measures take the hit, even when the delay is outside your control, because nobody recorded when the request went out or how often it was chased. And the clinician picks up the case again having forgotten the detail.
Missed fee requests cause their own friction. A surgery that asked for payment and heard nothing will reasonably put the request to the bottom of the pile, and your service will not know why the report never came.
| Step | What gets lost | What the tracker records |
|---|---|---|
| Consent | Paper form, choice about seeing the report | Signed consent and choices on the case |
| Request sent | Date and method | Sent date, recipient, questions |
| Fee | Surgery invoice in a general inbox | Fee requested, approved, paid |
| Chasing | Depends on memory | Scheduled chasers with a log |
| Report received | Scanned into notes | Received date, clinician alerted |
How we build GP and specialist request tracking
- The clinician raises a request from the case, choosing the recipient and the questions.
- Consent is captured electronically from the employee, including any choice about seeing the report first, as your process sets out.
- The request pack is generated and sent by secure email or post, and the date is logged.
- Fee requests from surgeries are recorded and routed for approval, with the charge passed to the employer where the contract allows.
- Chasers go out on the schedule you choose, and the case shows 'awaiting GP report' with the date requested.
- When the report arrives, it is attached to the case and the clinician is alerted.
- HR sees that the case is waiting on outside information, and since when, without any clinical detail.
Cases that keep moving
Every outside request has a status and a history. Chasing happens without anyone remembering to do it. Fee requests stop getting lost, so surgeries are not waiting on you. Your turnaround reports can show the time a case spent waiting on outside information, which is fairer to your team and clearer for the employer.
And when the report arrives, the clinician knows straight away, rather than finding it in the notes at the next review.
Is your team in this position?
- GP report requests are tracked in case notes or a spreadsheet.
- Surgery fee requests have been missed or paid late.
- HR asks about cases that are waiting on a GP report.
- Nobody can list all outstanding outside report requests.
- Clinicians find out the report arrived weeks after it did.