Patient Transport

Patient Transport Service Information

Added: 15 January 2009 | Updated: 13 December 2011

The patient transport services are responsible for transporting people to and from hospital appointments.
Currently individual NHS Trust hospitals contract a service provider to supply and manage transport to their patients.
The London Ambulance Service, which used to supply the service for most London hospitals now provides only around a third of London’s services. Other contracts are held by private companies, including minicab firms and organisations such as the St John’s Ambulance Service. Regrettably, no central and unified system exists for the administration of non-emergency patient transport services.

Each NHS Trust has its own procedure for arranging transport. Most require either your GP or hospital doctor to authorise the booking of transport.
However, others such as St Bart’s and Guy’s and St Thomas’, run their own booking schemes. The best advice is to mention to your GP at the time of your referral that you might need transport to and from the hospital. If you are already a hospital patient then check with your hospital doctor how you go about arranging transport.
Be aware that at present, patient transport tends to involve long waits, and there is clear evidence that some disabled people use Taxicard for hospital journeys because they find the Patient Transport Service so unreliable. However, having a Taxicard is not grounds for the Patient Transport Service to refuse you transport.

Many Patient Transport services will ask you a series of questions over the phone to assess your eligibility for the service. These questions can include if you can use public transport, if you have a Blue Badge, or whether you have a Motability vehicle or a family member with a car. Please consider your responses to these questions carefully as they will determine whether you will be allocated Patient Transport.

If you have been unfairly denied Patient Transport, or are unhappy with the level of customer service you have received then contact Transport for All and we will be able to advise you and contact the hospital on your behalf. Tel: 020 7737 2339.

Watch a video of ITV’s London Tonight coverage of a Transport for All protest outside a London Hospital