Getting a first or a new referral to an epilepsy specialist team

If your GP needs a second opinion about your seizures, they will arrange for you to have an appointment with an epilepsy specialist team. This arrangement is called a referral. A referral could be following your first seizure. Or it could be that you are no longer in contact with a specialist team, and your seizures or circumstances have changed.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) guideline 

NICE says that, if you have had a possible seizure, you should have an appointment with a specialist medical practitioner with training and expertise in epilepsy. This should be within two weeks of your first seizure.

Epilepsy Action has more information about NICE.

Choose and Book and epilepsy services

In England, Choose and Book is a service that lets you choose and book your first appointment with a named consultant-led epilepsy specialist team. A named consultant-led team is where a consultant has overall clinical responsibility for the service, team or treatment. The consultant will not always be at your appointment, but they will take overall responsibility for your care.

You might need an appointment with a named consultant-led epilepsy specialist team because of any of the following.

• You have had a possible first seizure.
• You need to find out if what happened to you is related to epilepsy. 
• You already have a diagnosis of epilepsy but have never seen an epilepsy specialist.
• You already have a diagnosis but haven’t seen an epilepsy specialist for many years.
• You already have a diagnosis of epilepsy but have been discharged from your epilepsy specialist and now need a specialist review of your epilepsy.

Choose and Book gives you some choice about the place, time and date of your appointment.

How Choose and Book works

Firstly, you and your GP should agree that you need a referral to a specialist team. Your GP will the be able to see, through the Choose and Book system, which hospitals or clinics are available for your referral. Your GP will help you decide which team will be best for you. 

If you know where and when you would like to be seen, you may be able to book your appointment before you leave your GP surgery. At that time, you will get confirmation of the place, date and time of your appointment.

If you want more time to consider your choices, your GP will give you an Appointment Request letter to take away with you. You can then book your appointment later. Your Appointment Request letter lists

• your unique booking reference number, given to you by your GP
• your NHS number 
• a list of hospitals or clinics for you to choose from. 

Your GP practice will also give you a password with your Appointment Request letter. You can then book your appointment by telephone, or online.

More information about Choose and Book is available on the Choose and Book website: chooseandbook.nhs.uk

Waiting times

NICE says that you should wait no longer than two weeks for a referral to a specialist following a possible first seizure. For referrals for other reasons, the average waiting time using Choose and Book is around eight weeks. The longest you should wait is 18 weeks.

The benefits of Choose and Book

• You can choose any hospital in England funded by the NHS. This includes NHS hospitals and some independent hospitals. More information about hospitals is available on the NHS Choices website: nhs.uk/servicedirectories
• Out of the appointments available, you can choose the date and time of your appointment. 
• There is less chance that information will get lost in the post because more correspondence takes place through computers.

What people say about Choose and Book

You can read about the experience of people who have used Choose and Book on the Choose and Book website: chooseandbook.nhs.uk

If you do not use the internet, you can telephone NHS Direct England on 0800 454647 for more information about Choose and Book.