Reimbursement for travel to NHS consultation

If you receive Income Support then travel costs to an NHS consultation under the "Healthcare Travel Costs Scheme".

My medical condition means I can't travel alone so I needed someone to travel with me. The payments department in the hospital I visited says they want a GP letter to prove I needed someone to go with me.

My GP wants £20 for such a letter. Could I also claim that £20 cost under the "Healthcare Travel Costs Scheme"?

I think the payments department at the hospital could easily have asked their doc I was seeing to provide this info. Especially as the medical condition which requires me to be accompanied is what I was going to the hospital for.

I think it's worked out alright because I've managed to find an old letter written by my GP last year saying I need to be accompanied (he didn't charge me for that one) and that may do the job this time.

I'm going to try and avoid ranting too loudly for the rest of this message (notice the colour change!) but ....

To take the hospital's argument to the extreme, the secretaries in the department I was visiting could have charged me for proof confirming that I attended their clinic on the basis that there was no clinical need for such a thing. That's not a great example of the conundrum but it sort of makes the point of how I feel.

Next time, I will ask the hospital to arrange transport as I have learnt that they are a national hospital for their speciality and that they can make their own transport arrangements to collect incapacitated patients even from half way across the country (as is my case).

Well, I think I've got that matter off my chest! Thanks for hearing me out but sometimes one feels the need to VENT at how frustrating these things can be.