GP appointments average around 9 minutes. In that time, your GP is managing your notes, forming a clinical judgement, and processing a referral. The default — almost always — is your local NHS hospital.
Not because it's your best option. Not because it has the shortest waiting time. Simply because it's the default.
The NHS Choice Framework actually requires GPs to offer patients an average of five choices at the point of referral. But in a 9-minute appointment, under pressure, with a waiting room full of patients — it often doesn't happen.
And because most patients don't know they're entitled to ask, they don't.
That ends today.