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Doctor letters

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lee0596

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1
Can i doctor charge me for a letter to the airline, To explain i am diabetic and i need to take insulin and needles on plane with me
 
My gp charges 30pounds!! When i queried this was told its the norm to charge. I was very annoyed but the reveptionist told me not to bother with a letter and thay a repeat prescription copy should be fine if anyone queries the insulin.
 
It seems GPs quite often charge, Consultants less so.
 
A few years ago when I was put on insulin, after several years diet and tablets, my Diabetes Nurse provided the letter free of charge. She said doctor would charge. She was associated with hospital and visited surgery on certain days
 
It is very common for a GP to charge for such a letter.
However, if you have a hospital based diabetes team, they will typically provide the letter for free.
 
My husband is not diabetic but has a pacemaker and other illnesses so we always take his prescriptions with us as well as his pacemaker, aortic valve replacement and Warfarin cards. He’s never been asked to show them but at least they are there should we need to.
 
GPs charging for letters has become the norm as it is described as as a "non-essential, non-clinical service" for them. Hospital Consultants however do not charge - if I even had a £ for every letter I have done for a patient, I could have retired by now.......:)
 
GP’s have always been able to charge fir mon essential requests such as letters.
 
Give your Hospital Consultant's admin a ring, as they will have one they can just print out and sign, (a GP is likely to need to do real work to write one) . Or just take a copy of the prescription.
 
ringi said:
Give your Hospital Consultant's admin a ring, as they will have one they can just print out and sign, (a GP is likely to need to do real work to write one) . Or just take a copy of the prescription.
Click to expand...

When patients ask me to do a letter (I am a hospital consultant) I dictate a letter personalised to the individual patient - I certainly don't have one I can just "print out and sign" - I think the work involved is the same, it takes a bit of an effort whether the DN does it, the Consultant or the GP- only difference is that secondary care medics do not charge for letters, while primary care ones do :)
Nurses, on the other hand, don't, but quite often you need a Doctor's letter, not a Clinical Nurse specialist, even if she knows a lot more about her specialty than the GP does!
 
@CondorX this is a letter that many people with type1 needs and should be able to be the same for everyone on inslin.
 
Perhaps rather than a letter which some patients have to pay for the NHS should automatically issue all those with Type 1 diabetes or those on insulin with a card similar to steroid, warfarin or pace maker cards.
 
I was given a plastic card by my diabetic nurse that states I am on insulin and gives my GP contact details. She said to produce that if I go abroad. Not sure if that is right though.
 
ringi said:
@CondorX this is a letter that many people with type1 needs and should be able to be the same for everyone on inslin.
Click to expand...
While we’re all on insulin, we have many, many different ways of delivering it, blood testing etc. If a letter need to specify what we need to carry, it’s more than just the juice the letter needs to mention, especially now there is so much tech to consider x
 
Mel dCP said:
While we’re all on insulin, we have many, many different ways of delivering it, blood testing etc. If a letter need to specify what we need to carry, it’s more than just the juice the letter needs to mention, especially now there is so much tech to consider x
Click to expand...

That makes it much clearer. She never mentioned that.
 
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