NHS Right to Choose: Can You Pick Where You Have Your Scan?

If you are waiting for an NHS appointment, it is worth knowing that in England you usually have a say in where that appointment happens. The NHS says that in most cases you have the legal right to choose the hospital or service you would like to go to when your GP refers you. That can include some independent providers that treat NHS patients.

The right is less often explained for scans. This guide sets out what it covers, how a scan fits into it, the exceptions, what you can do after 18 weeks, and where community diagnostic centres and private clinics sit alongside it.

What the right to choose actually is

The NHS website explains that if your GP refers you, in most cases you have the legal right to choose the hospital or service you would like to go to, and to choose the clinical team led by a consultant or named healthcare professional, as long as that team provides the treatment you need. The NHS adds that private hospitals can be chosen if they provide NHS services and cost the NHS no more than a standard NHS hospital referral.

GOV.UK's NHS Choice Framework gives the detail. It says the choice applies at the point of referral, to providers that hold an NHS contract for the service you need, and that referrers are asked to shortlist on average 5 choices where practicable. The framework is explicit that this includes independent sector providers who provide services for the NHS. The right applies in England; Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland run their own arrangements.

Does it cover scans?

Not directly, and it helps to be clear about this. The Choice Framework frames the legal right around your first outpatient appointment with a consultant-led team or a mental health professional. It does not list diagnostic tests such as MRI or CT as a separate choice. What happens in practice is that the team you choose arranges whatever tests it needs, so choosing the team usually decides where the scan happens too.

Where your GP orders a scan directly, without a specialist referral, the request follows your local NHS arrangements rather than the choice rules. You can still ask where the scan will be done and whether there is more than one option.

When the right does not apply

The Choice Framework says there is no legal right to choose for urgent, emergency or crisis services, and that onward referrals for an existing condition are excluded. Serving members of the armed forces, some prisoners and detainees, and people detained under the Mental Health Act are also outside the outpatient choice, and the framework says choice in maternity services is recommended but is not a legal right.

Suspected cancer referrals are handled under their own standard. The framework says you can ask for a different provider if you will not receive a diagnosis, or have cancer ruled out, within 28 days of an urgent referral, with some exceptions. Our guide to urgent suspected cancer referrals explains that pathway.

If you have waited more than 18 weeks

The Choice Framework says you can ask to be referred to a different provider if you have waited, or will wait, more than 18 weeks for non-urgent, consultant-led treatment. It lists exceptions, such as no alternative provider being able to start treatment sooner, the service not being consultant-led, or you having chosen to wait longer.

The NHS website puts the responsibility on the hospital or integrated care board to investigate and offer suitable alternatives that can see you sooner. If you are not offered a choice, the NHS says to raise it first with the person referring you, then complain to your integrated care board, and if that does not resolve it, to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman.

How to use it

• Tell your GP your preferences during the appointment. The NHS website says the GP selects the shortlist of providers that goes into your referral.
• Use the NHS e-Referral Service, at the surgery or online, to choose from that shortlist. GOV.UK says you can check waiting times and CQC ratings for the shortlisted providers through Manage your referral.
• Ask where any scan would be done and how long the wait is at each option.
• If a scan has been requested and nothing has happened, contact the hospital's radiology department and ask where you are on the list.

Community diagnostic centres

Community diagnostic centres are a separate route worth asking about. NHS England describes them as extra diagnostic capacity away from acute hospitals. The minimum imaging set for a standard centre is CT, MRI, ultrasound and plain X-ray, with echocardiography among the core physiological tests, and some centres also offer mammography and DEXA. NHS England says referrals can come from GPs, hospital teams and other services, and that integrated care boards should use a single list to send the longest-waiting patients to them. Our guide to community diagnostic centres explains how they work.

Where the numbers stand

NHS England's referral to treatment statistics for August 2026, published on 9 October 2026, put the waiting list at about 7.37 million pathways, with around 65 per cent waiting under 18 weeks against the 92 per cent standard. Those are national averages. Waits for a particular scan at a particular hospital can be much shorter or much longer, which is exactly why asking about alternatives is worthwhile.

Where a private scan fits

A private scan is one option among several, not a necessity, and it does not change your place on an NHS list. Whether you need a scan, and which one, is a decision for your GP or clinician. If a scan has been advised and you decide to look at self-funding, MRI and ultrasound can be arranged without a GP referral at many clinics, while CT, X-ray, DEXA and mammography need a referral, which the clinic can often arrange through its own clinician.

You can compare clinics near you and send an enquiry; the clinic contacts you to confirm whether it needs a referral and the next steps. Our guide to NHS MRI waiting times versus private looks at what going private does and does not change. FindScan is a directory of independent, regulated imaging clinics: you compare clinics and send an enquiry, and the clinic contacts you. We are not a healthcare provider.