One in seven people in England who need hospital care are not receiving it because their GP referral is lost, rejected or delayed, the NHS’s patient watchdog has found.
Three-quarters (75%) of those trapped in this “referrals black hole” suffer harm to their physical or mental health as a result of not being added to the waiting list for tests or treatment.
Communication with patients is so unreliable that seven in 10 (70%) only discover they have not been put on a waiting list after chasing up the NHS because they have not been told a hold-up has occurred. In some cases referrals that GPs have agreed to make do not even get sent from their surgery to the hospital, Healthwatch England’s findings show.
Source: Guardian, 7 December 2025
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