Patient Transport

Hi Will,
If your mother is in receipt of Guarenteed Pension Credit, or Universal Credit, she will be entitled to claim taxi fares to and from her hospital appts. Your mother must get a form signed from her Consultant, or the check-in clerk. A receipt from the taxi driver is essential. Then your mother can claim her fare back in full. There is a payment office in each hospital who deals with this. Proof of her entitlement is required, either by post or on the day.
Hope this helps! If your mother is unable to walk to the office desk with all her proof, you may have to step in and send these documents by post for her.

Thanks for the advice RIA. Het first hospital visit since the service was taken away from her resulted in her collapsing at the hospital as there were no porters available to take her without missing her appointment. When she returned home she rang the ambulance authority telling them they were responsible for her accident. Her next 2 visits to hospital she was taken by ambulance.

I read the above with intrest as i will be going on dialisis shortly, and when i read the above i called my local patient transport which covers: Patients in Northumberland, Newcastle, Sunderland/Washington, Gateshead, North Tyneside and South Tyneside, to be told its the first time she heard of this and there were no plans currently to stop this service in above areas. (i hope it stays that way) Logan.

Hi Will,
I'm so sorry to hear about your mums fall. It breaks my heart when I hear about the most vulnerable. I sincerely hope she wasn't hurt too much!
I'm lucky in the fact; I have a support worker who takes me to all my appointments.
Anyone who is in receipt of Guaranteed Pension Credit, or those receiving U/C or LWRCA are entitled to claim back any transport costs.
There is a specific form which the receptionists keep available. They will fill it in and then the Consultant/ Dr must sign it to prove your attendance.

Thanks RIA.

Thanks for the advice. I am on UC now so will keep this in mind as I have a probable MRI scan coming which is at the main hospital 15 miles away.

We have some local organisation that have volunteer drivers. You have to book 2 weeks before and the volunteer drives you there and back and accompanies you to the appointment. They only charge 40p a mile (although I would tip them as well) which is a lot cheaper than a taxi. I may get the form to claim this back.

To the other extreme my partner attends st toms in london we go by train and walk . We both have mobility and other issues he has a pacemaker. Last week we got a call to book an appointment and they said do we need patient transport ? the transport offered was a helicopter there and back. We were gobsmacked to say the least and we declined . Ridiculous when people are struggling for transport. He was quite put out when we declined , can only assume they have a pot of money to spend