Patients can be referred to specialist clinics by GPs, specialists, and other community-based healthcare providers, as well as clinicians in emergency departments, inpatient units and other areas of the health service. In a few cases, patients or carers can self-refer.

There are a number of steps your referral needs to go through before we can let you know about your appointment. The outcome of your referral will be determined in eight days, as long as we have all the required information from your GP needed to assess your referral.

The following guide outlines the steps we take to determine what happens next based on your referral:

Accepted referrals are triaged as urgent or routine:

For urgent referrals, Specialist Clinics will contact the patient to make an appointment for within 30 days.
For routine referrals, Specialist Clinics will send a letter to the referrer and the patient detailing the next steps.

Where a referral is incomplete or declined, Specialist Clinics will send a letter to the referrer (and the patient in the case of a declined referral) notifying them of the outcome.

Process

Step 1
Your referral is sent to the Specialist Clinic.

Step 2
We review your referral within two to three days.

Please note: If we need more information, we will contact the person who referred you and they have 30 days to send us an updated referral. If an updated referral is not sent, you will receive a letter stating your referral is closed.

Step 3

We triage your referral within five days.

Triage is our way of assessing the information on your referral form to determine if your condition is urgent or routine.

Urgent: You are given an appointment date.
Routine: You go on a wait list.

Step 4
We send a letter to you and the person who referred you to confirm the outcome of your referral.