We will contact you by text message, telephone or letter if you have abnormal results that require further treatment or investigation. We process thousands of results per week, and for this reason we are not able to contact patients if their results are normal.

We encourage patients to follow up their own results. This can be done with ease if you sign up to the NHS App or have a Patient Access Account. Alternatively you can contact the surgery by telephone and select the 'Results Line.' Please note that the reception team will only be able to pass on general comments from the clinician once the result has been filed/actioned for example 'result acceptable,' 'repeat test needed in 2 weeks.' If you wish to discuss your results in detail, we recommend that you request a further appointment to do so. You will need to fill in our online form in the usual way to do this.

Please note that results belonging to anyone >18years will not be given to anyone other than the patient, except in exceptional circumstances.

Hospital Results

If you have had tests arranged by a hospital team (including blood results or scans), these results will not be automatically sent to your GP surgery, but rather will go directly to the clinician who requested the test. It is the responsiblity of the clinician who arranged the test to pass information about any results back to you. This is essential as often the intepretation of what the results actually mean for you require a specialist opinion/interpretation.

If you have not heard from the hospital team and wish to know your results, you will need to contact the hospital team directly. You can usually find out who to contact by calling the telephone number on the top of your recent clinic letters, or by calling the hospital switchboard and asking to be put through to the secretary of the team looking after you. 

A blood test is when a sample of blood is taken for testing in a laboratory. Blood tests have a wide range of uses and are one of the most common types of medical test. For example, a blood test can be used to:

• assess your general state of health
• confirm the presence of a bacterial or viral infection
• see how well certain organs, such as the liver and kidneys, are functioning

A blood test usually involves the phlebotomist taking a blood sample from a blood vessel in your arm and the usual place for a sample is the inside of the elbow or wrist, where the veins are relatively close to the surface. Blood samples from children are most commonly taken from the back of the hand. The childs hand will be anaesthetised (numbed) with a special cream before the sample is taken.

You can find out more about blood tests, their purpose and the way they are performed on the NHS Choices website.

An X-ray is a widely used diagnostic test to examine the inside of the body. X-rays are a very effective way of detecting problems with bones, such as fractures. They can also often identify problems with soft tissue, such as pneumonia or breast cancer.

If you have an X-ray, you will be asked to lie on a table or stand against a surface so that the part of your body being X-rayed is between the X-ray tube and the photographic plate.

An X-ray is usually carried out by a radiographer, a healthcare professional who specialises in using imaging technology, such as X-rays and ultrasound scanners.

You can find out more about x-ray tests, how they are performed, their function and the risks by visiting the NHS Choices website.