From today (Tuesday 31 October), patients who have been waiting over 40 weeks for treatment and do not have an appointment date could be eligible to request to move to an alternative care provider to possibly receive treatment sooner.
Eligible patients will be contacted by the Trust from ENH Trust with further information. Patients without a mobile number on record or have requested they are not to be contacted by text will receive a letter.
If you wish to be considered to move to another hospital for your care, please submit your details via the national PIDMAS website. If you need support to complete this please contact the NHS National Helpline on 0345 4506166.
If patients would like to be considered for treatment elsewhere they will need to click on the link and complete the required information.
This information will then be sent to the relevant department for clinical review to see if it is appropriate for the patient to move hospital.
Please be aware that by making a request to move your care to another hospital, your entire pathway of care will be moved. This includes all appointments, any required treatment/surgery and any follow up care.
If you request to move, every effort will be made to identify an alternative hospital, however there may be circumstances in which it is not clinically appropriate to move to a different hospital or alternative capacity is not available. In these circumstances you will remain on the waiting list at East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust and will be contacted as soon as an appointment becomes available.
We would like to assure you that:
- Our communication will only ever ask questions relating to your care
- We will never ask for bank details or make reference to money
- You may need to provide personal details if you are creating a new NHS login or are contacting the national helpline to submit your request where you will be asked particular information relating to your request
Please read through the questions and answers below for more information
In the majority of cases, the patient should be told if a new provider has been found or not within eight weeks of starting the process.
If a patient is not clinically appropriate to move they should be told within three weeks. If an alternative provider is not identified, the patient will be informed and will remain on the waiting list with their original provider.
The patient’s position on their current waiting list will not be impacted if a new provider isn’t identified.
There is the existing NHS Travel Reimbursement Scheme which can be utilised if patients opt to receive care and treatment by an alternative care provider.
Currently under 18s are not eligible for this.
It is important for patients to wait to be contacted and to not contact the hospital directly.
