Choose and Book is the centralised appointment booking system to which nearly all hospitals in the UK are now linked. The basic idea behind Choose and Book is that control of your referrals and hospital appointments is transferred to you, the patient:

After deciding to proceed with a referral, you and your GP should pick a shortlist of up to five hospitals or clinics that you would like to attend. An appointment request to those hospitals is made there and then in the consultation.

Your GP will then print off a form with your booking reference number, NHS number, password, the list of hospitals and instructions on how to turn the appointment request into a confirmed booking – either by phone or online.

The real advantages of the system lie in this booking stage – particularly if you use the online booking system. After logging into Choose and Book with the details provided on the form you will see a selection of available appointments from all of your short listed hospitals – you can then pick the exact time and date that suits you best. You can log in and change your appointment as often as you like, regularly check for any earlier cancellations and cancel your own appointment if needs be – all without a minute spent on hold at a busy hospital switchboard!

We recommend browsing the Choose and Book website as it contains much more detailed information about how to use the system than we could possibly fit here. The Choose and Book Patient Presentation PDF in particular is a very useful resource – it provides a step by step guide on how to book, change and cancel your hospital appointments online