Category
Patient Care & Clinical Services
What you can treat, working alongside the NHS, patient relationships and keeping good records.
NHS Integration
7 guides
As a private GP, can I make NHS referrals?
Yes. The BMA says private GPs are free to refer their patients to the NHS in the same way NHS GPs refer to the private sector, and its guidance adds that private providers can refer directly without going back to the NHS GP, as long as the patient is eligible for NHS care. Emergencies and urgent suspected cancer referrals are straightforward in principle, while routine referrals depend on each trust’s route for referrals that do not come through e-RS.
As a private GP, can I use the NHS electronic prescribing service (EPS)?
No. The NHS Electronic Prescription Service carries NHS prescriptions only, so private prescriptions cannot be sent through it, even by a provider with an NHS organisation code. Private GPs issue signed paper prescriptions or use a private electronic prescribing service. Private prescriptions for Schedule 2 and 3 controlled drugs must still be on the special paper form with your private prescriber code.
Can I access a patient’s NHS record as part of a private GP consultation?
Not directly. The NHS systems that let clinicians view GP records, such as GP Connect, the Summary Care Record and Accurx Record View, are built for NHS and NHS-connected organisations, and we could not find a route for a purely private GP service at the time of review. The practical route is patient-led: with the patient’s consent, they can show you their record in the NHS App or another approved app, or request a copy from their NHS practice.
Can I refer patients to the two-week wait as a private GP?
Yes, in England: the two-week wait target was retired in October 2023, the referral is now called an urgent suspected cancer referral, and NHS England’s cancer waiting times guidance (version 12.1, in effect from 1 July 2025) says local systems should have processes to accept these referrals directly from the independent sector, including private GPs, when the patient meets the usual referral criteria and is eligible for NHS care. Find your local route before you need it, send the referral securely, and track it until the patient has been seen.
Do private practitioners have access to the electronic referral service (ERS)?
No. A purely private GP cannot refer through the NHS e-Referral Service (e-RS), because access depends on an NHS organisation code, NHS smartcard authentication sponsored through a commissioner, and NHS-commissioned services. You can still refer NHS-eligible patients to NHS services, but by letter through each trust’s non-e-RS route, and LMC guidance says the NHS GP should not be asked to re-refer simply because a hospital prefers e-RS.
How can I send consultation notes back to a patient’s NHS GP?
With the patient’s consent, send a short summary of each private consultation to their NHS GP. The most direct routes are electronic document transfer into the GP practice’s workflow over the NHS MESH service, either through your own MESH mailbox, a document transfer service or a record system that sends over MESH. Where that is not possible, use secure encrypted email or give the summary to the patient to pass on.
View from a private GP: How should independent GPs communicate with NHS GPs?
Share a short summary with the patient’s NHS GP after each private episode, with consent, and be explicit about who is responsible for follow-up. Write letters that a busy NHS practice can file and code quickly, ask rather than assume if you want the NHS GP to take something on, and remember that NHS GPs are not obliged to continue tests, prescribing or shared care that you start.
Patient Relationships
6 guides
Are patients allowed to nominate a private GP as their registered GP?
No, because being someone’s registered GP is an NHS status that only an NHS GP practice can hold, so a patient cannot nominate a purely private GP instead. Patients can see a private GP as often as they like while staying registered with an NHS practice, and they should, because NHS registration is how they get NHS prescriptions, referrals, screening invitations and vaccinations. A private practice can keep its own list of patients or members, but that list has no status in the NHS.
Are there different types of private GP?
Yes. Private GPs do the same clinical work in several different arrangements: sessional or employed work for a private provider, practising privileges at a hospital or clinic, running their own clinic, online or remote services, home-visiting and membership models, and services built around a special interest. The biggest difference between them is who carries the regulator registration, the business risk and the patient relationship, and many GPs combine one of them with NHS work.
How do I maintain professional boundaries with patients in a private setting?
The GMC’s standards on boundaries apply in exactly the same way whether a patient pays or not. What changes in private practice is the pressure on them: patients may expect direct access to you, friends and colleagues may ask to become patients, and payment can blur the line between a service relationship and a personal one. Decide your rules before these situations arise, write them into your practice policies and patient information, and record anything unusual in the notes.
How do I manage patient expectations in a private setting?
Set expectations in writing before the first appointment: what the fee covers, what costs extra, how quickly you respond, how results are handled and what the patient’s NHS GP will and will not take on. In the consultation, remember that payment does not change your clinical duties: GMC guidance says you should explore a request you disagree with, but not provide treatment that would not serve the patient’s needs.
How do private GP consultations differ from NHS consultations?
Private GP consultations are usually longer and easier to book, and patients often see the same doctor each time, so you can do more in one appointment, including tests. In exchange you work without the NHS record or NHS prescribing and referral systems, you discuss costs as part of the consultation, and you are responsible for following up everything you start. The clinical and ethical standards are the same.
What are the best practices for managing patient complaints?
Have a written complaints procedure that patients can find, acknowledge each complaint within a few working days, investigate it properly and reply in writing with what happened, what you are changing and where the patient can go next. In England the CQC requires every registered provider to run an accessible complaints system, and privately funded patients cannot go to the NHS Ombudsman, so tell them about independent adjudication such as ISCAS if you subscribe to it.
Records & Data Management
2 guides
Can I take paper notes for my private general practice?
Yes. No law requires a private GP to keep electronic records, and the CQC accepts paper or electronic records as long as they are secure, accurate, complete, legible and written at the time. In practice paper makes several things harder: sharing letters with NHS GPs, checking prescriptions, working remotely, running recalls and audits, keeping a backup and answering access requests, so most private GPs choose an electronic record from the start.
How do private GPs store their consultation notes?
Most private GPs store consultation notes in a cloud-hosted electronic record system that the practice subscribes to, with the practice as data controller and the supplier as its processor under a written contract. Whatever system you use, the records must be secure, accurate, complete and contemporaneous under CQC Regulation 17 and UK GDPR, backed up, kept for a defined retention period and exportable if you change supplier or close.
Scope of Practice
6 guides
As a private GP, what can I treat?
You can treat anything within your competence that you would treat in NHS general practice, and add services the NHS GP contract does not cover, such as health checks, non-NHS travel vaccines or minor procedures. The limits come from GMC guidance on working within your competence, the regulated activities your registration covers, prescribing rules for some medicines, and what your indemnity includes. Some areas, such as cosmetic injectables and yellow fever vaccination, carry their own extra rules.
Private prescribing: a workflow and governance checklist
A private prescription must meet the Human Medicines Regulations 2012, and it cannot go through the NHS Electronic Prescription Service. Use signed paper or a private e-prescribing service with an advanced electronic signature. Schedule 2 and 3 controlled drugs need your nation’s private CD form, wet-signed, with your private prescriber number. Record every decision and tell the patient’s NHS GP, with consent.
What are the benefits of offering health screening packages?
Health check packages give a private GP service predictable, bookable work, a reason for patients to come back each year and a way to find treatable problems such as raised blood pressure or diabetes. The benefit depends on choosing tests with a clear purpose, telling patients honestly what screening can and cannot do, and taking responsibility for acting on every result, because the UK National Screening Committee does not recommend many commercially sold tests.
What are the considerations for providing out-of-hours services?
Before offering out-of-hours care, decide exactly what you are offering (extended clinic hours, telephone access or home visits), check that your indemnity and regulator registration cover it, and make sure you can run it safely with access to records, results and a clear route to NHS urgent care. Patients should always know what to do when you are not available, and you should not let extra hours erode rest for you or your staff.
Which private services can I offer to patients registered at my practice?
Very few, because an NHS GP practice (GMS or PMS) must not charge its own registered patients for any treatment or prescription, whether or not the NHS contract covers it. It can charge them only for the items listed in the regulations, such as travel vaccines the NHS does not fund, malaria tablets, and certain reports, certificates and examinations requested by third parties. Services like private blood tests, longer appointments or cosmetic procedures cannot be sold to your own patients.
Who can I see as a private GP?
You can see almost anyone privately, as long as the care is within your competence, your regulator registration and your indemnity cover. The main exceptions are patients registered with an NHS practice you are a partner or contractor in, whom the practice cannot charge for treatment, and people close to you, whom GMC guidance says you should avoid treating wherever possible. Seeing children, patients abroad or patients remotely is allowed but brings extra requirements.
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Guides on every part of running a private general practice, from regulation to growing your list.
