Getting your test results
If your test results show that you need more tests or treatment, we will contact you.
Once a doctor has reviewed your test results, you can view them:
- in your NHS account (through the NHS website or NHS App)
- in your Patient Access account
- phone us on Haydock Medical Centre: 01744 624360 / Old Whint Surgery: 01744 612553 after 10am and we will tell you what the results are
Following patient feedback, we wanted to share with you the process of test results and how we inform you of the results.
Once we receive test results back, a clinician (typically a GP or Advanced Nurse Practitioner) has to read and ”sign off” every one of these. We receive 200-300 results every day, it can take a further 2-3 working days for results to be filed into your medical record.
Considering this process, it can often take up to 1 week – sometimes longer – for results to be visible on your NHS App or Patient Access App
Our clinicians look out for abnormal results and then contact patients about these when required. However, normal results are filed and we don’t contact patients about these. Some results are filed as ‘satisfactory’ – these are not necessarily in the normal range, but for various reasons can be considered acceptable for an individual patient. Again, we don’t contact patients about these.
If you are waiting for results, rather than contacting reception we recommend checking after about 1 week if your results are visible on the ‘NHS’ App or ‘Patient Access’ App. If your results are not visible at that time, we suggest to check again in 3 working days and then call us and we will look into this for you. We hope the below table will give you some guide on how long you can expect to wait for results.
Please note any tests carried out external to the practice are not under our control, we will of course support you as much as we can but the speed in which the results are reported to us sits with the external care provider.
| Test | Results available | Where to access results |
| Urine samples | 1 week | NHS app |
| Blood tests | 1 week * | NHS app |
| Wound swabs | 1 week | NHS app |
| Sputum culture | 1 week | NHS app |
| X-ray reports | 1-2 weeks** | NHS app |
| Scans | 2-4 weeks** | NHS app |
| ECG | 2 weeks | NHS app |
| Echocardiogram | 3-4 weeks | NHS app |
| Smear tests | 3-4 weeks | Results from screening programme sent directly to you |
*some specialist blood tests can be sent to external labs and take several weeks to process
**some x-rays and scans can take longer to be reported. If you haven’t received a result from an x-ray within 2 weeks or a scan within 4 weeks please contact the surgery and we will contact the radiology department for an update
If you do not have access the NHS App we strongly suggest that you move to this rather than calling if at all possible. If you would like support with setting up the app or how to use it once you have it set up please do not hesitate to let us know and we will make arrangements for this to happen.