The Greyswood Practice offers the following Non-NHS Services:
- Brief Medical Summary – no charge.
- Proof of registration/ address – £15.00
- Simple Statement of Fact Doctors’ Letter – £35.00
- Private Medical Certificate (GP letter prior to 7 days of sickness) – £35.00
- Fitness to Travel Letter – £35.00
- Adoption Medical Forms – £100.00
- Taxi/DVLA/TFL Medicals – £140.00
- Firearms Licensing Check – via medi2data – see below.
- Private Medical Insurance Report e.g. BUPA/ Vitality – completed through an external provider called Medi2data – see Medi2data section below for more information about this service.
We are not able to write housing letters or letters for school – please see sections below for further information.
If you have a private medical report that you would like us to complete, please contact the surgery to discuss your request with a member of the practice administration team as soon as possible. This will help prevent any delay in processing your request.
We aim to complete private reports within 4-6 weeks of payment date, and cannot prioritise individual cases.
We only accept payment by card, which is usually taken before the examination or preparation of the report. In order to be fair to all patients, there are no exceptions to the charges.
Housing Letters
Please note we are not able to write housing letters for patients. Patients requiring help or support regarding their housing should ask reception to be referred to our Social Prescriber, who will be able to signpost you to local support services.
Letters for educational providers
We are not able to provide letters to parents to support children’s school applications.
Where schools request a medical certificate to validate their child’s absence from school, there is clear guidance as to when we can provide one:
Non-recurrent short term sickness (less than 7 days): GPs do not provide short term sickness certification for periods of less than 7 days and are unable to issue medical certificates for longer periods of sickness absence unless the patient was seen by the GP at the time of the illness. GPs are not contractually required to undertake this and it is not part of their terms of service. In general GPs do not provide certificates for children as the parent’s explanation of the absence is generally sufficient for the purposes of the school.
Long term illness: when a child suffers from a long-term condition, any certification will be provided by the responsible specialist at the hospital and should not be requested from the GP.
When a child misses an examination: GPs are not obliged to provide sickness certification for students that miss an exam, or believe their performance was affected due to illness.
The following letter can be printed and shared with your child’s school if they request a letter from your GP.
Medi2data
The Greyswood Practice outsources some of our medical reporting, including Insurance reports, Subject Access Requests and UCC113/ PIP forms to medi2data.
Medi2data are an NHS digital-accredited company who can access patients’ medical records to produce digital, GDPR-compliant medical reports.
If the administration team inform you that your report is being processed by medi2data, the fastest way to receive an update is to go to the medi2data.com website. There you can hover over ‘Instructing Parties in the menu at the top, and select MET. Enter the third party’s reference code to view the progress of your report.
You can also email or call the medi2data team via [email protected] or 0333 3055 774 (option 3) to discuss your report, or any concerns regarding your personal data.
Please note that medi2data operate their own pricing structure and will contact patients directly with any fees that may be payable.
Why does my doctor charge fees?
When your doctor is asked to give medical information about you in the form of a report, letter or certificate, the request kick starts a series of processes.
This takes time and is not always straightforward or simple to complete. Some of the information is not available easily and will mean the doctor has to sort and select the right information for the request.
The doctor also must establish who is funding this work and if it is not part of their NHS work, agree a fee for this.
Surely the work is paid for by the NHS?
Not all work GPs are asked to do is paid for by the NHS, and many GPs are self-employed. This means they must cover their time and costs – staff, buildings, heating, etc – in the same way as any small business. The NHS only pays for NHS work, so any work outside of the NHS must be funded by other means, and this is why fees are charged.
Why does it take so long?
The surgery receives a large number of requests, which are often to do with whether your general health allows you to do something e.g. to work, receive benefits or drive, or for insurance purposes, court or other medico-legal reasons.
All requests will vary in complexity, volume and consistency, ranging from signing a certificate which can take minutes, to an in-depth report with an examination that can take hours.
What your doctor is signing
When your doctor signs a certificate or completes a report, it is a condition of remaining on the Medical Register that they only sign what they know to be true.
In order to complete even the simplest of forms, they may have to check your entire medical record (some of which may not be accessible on a computer or on site).
Carelessness or an inaccurate report can have serious consequences for the doctor with the General Medical Council (the doctors’ regulatory body) or even the Police.
What can I do to help?
– Not all documents need a signature by a doctor and can be done by other professionals. Please check the form and accompanying guidance.
– If you have several forms requiring completion, please present them all at once.
– Please don’t book an appointment with one of the GPs to complete your form. Our administrative team will advise you if this is necessary and arrange your appointment accordingly.