Websites & patient experience · Practical guide

Help patients ask about a referral that has not arrived

Someone has been referred but has no confirmation from the practice. A generic contact page gives no clue what information helps the team trace whether the referral was sent and received. A missing referral can leave patients unsure whether to contact the practice or the sender. Explain the route the practice uses to check receipt and which reference details are helpful.

Read the guide Make your action list
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Make the website useful for the people who use your practice.

What to change

Offer a specific referral-status enquiry with the minimum information the authorised team needs. Describe the next practical step without promising that a referral has been accepted.

A worked example

Illustrative example

A visitor who was told their referral would be sent can find a route headed check whether we received your referral. The instructions name the referring organisation and explain which secure contact method to use.

Healthcare website design showing connected desktop and mobile service and enquiry layouts.
Make the service and next step clear on every screen.
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Review keyboard access, contrast and understandable form fields.

Put it into practice

Ask staff how they distinguish a document not yet received from one waiting to be reviewed. The public wording should keep those stages separate rather than suggesting that the patient must repeatedly send the same material.

Explain whether the team is checking receipt or a later review stage. Keeping those questions distinct helps the patient understand the update without interpreting an administrative answer as a service decision.

What to agree before publishing

Separate checking whether a referral arrived from asking whether it has been reviewed. Those questions can have different answers at the same moment. Ask the receiving team what references it needs and which route patients or senders should use for follow-up. The public explanation should avoid instructing repeated submission as the default response to silence. Help the person establish the status of the original document through the normal process, then understand whether the practice, sender or patient needs to act next.

How to check the result

Reception can identify the request without inviting a full medical history into a general inbox.

A mistake to avoid

Avoid advising people to repeatedly resend documents, because that may create duplicates without resolving where the original referral stopped.

Turn reading into a next step

Your action checklist

Work through these checks with your team or supplier. Tick the ones you have resolved and leave unknowns open.

Checks to discuss

Record what you know, what is still missing and the answer you need from your team or supplier.

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Further reading

These sources provide background for the topic. The practice examples and checklist are illustrative planning suggestions from Kay & Co.

Related guides

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