Why do hospitals send discharge summaries?
Hospitals and GPs are separate parts of the NHS. When you leave hospital, the hospital team hands responsibility for your ongoing care back to your GP. The discharge summary is that handover — a formal record of what happened during your stay so your GP can continue your care without gaps.
NHS England guidelines require hospitals to send a discharge summary to your GP within 24 hours of discharge for emergency admissions. In practice, many GPs now receive them electronically within hours.
What a discharge summary contains
Most discharge summaries follow a standard structure. You will typically see some or all of the following:
- Admission date and reason — why you were admitted and when
- Diagnosis — what the clinical team concluded
- Treatment received — what was done during your stay
- Medications on discharge — what you were sent home with and why
- Follow-up plan — what happens next and who is responsible
- Allergies — what is recorded on your file
What to check in your discharge summary
Discharge summaries can contain errors. Medication doses, allergies, and even diagnoses are occasionally recorded incorrectly. Check these things specifically:
- Are your medications and doses correct?
- Are your allergies listed accurately?
- Does the follow-up plan match what you were told?
- Is there anything listed you don't recognise?
If something doesn't look right, contact your GP. You have the right to request corrections under the UK GDPR.
When to contact your GP
In most cases, a discharge summary is informational — it tells you what happened, not what you need to do right now. But contact your GP if you have questions about your medications, your follow-up plan, or anything in the summary you don't understand.
If something is urgent after reading it, call NHS 111 — do not wait.