Home · Personal · Writing & Creative · Personal writing & speeches
As of 13 August 2026, AI can write a letter to your GP.
Most people should hand this to a purpose-built tool.
Can you do it?
5 minutesto a draft.
15 minutesto something you’d act on.
Cost, all in£0
Skill needednone
Who has to check ityou
What the alternative costsA free chat interface can draft the letter, while Grammarly can help with grammar and tone but cannot assess your symptoms.
If this goes wrong: the letter can omit an important detail or make a worrying symptom sound routine, which can delay appropriate care.
What to actually do
Use a tool built for this
The route this page recommends
Do it yourself
Second choiceA chat interface, no skill needed, and roughly 15 minutes until you can act on the result.
How to actually do it
- Open a chatbot such as ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini, and do not paste your NHS number, login details or other information that the letter does not need.
- Write down the main reason for contacting the GP, when the issue started, how it has changed, relevant symptoms, medicines, medical history and what outcome you want from the practice.
- Paste the prompt above into the chatbot, replace the final bracketed section with your notes, and ask it to produce the letter and its factual checklist.
- Compare the draft line by line with your notes, correcting dates, medicines, symptoms, severity and anything the chatbot has added or misunderstood.
- Remove unnecessary identifying or sensitive details, then ask the chatbot to shorten the letter without changing any facts if it is longer than you need.
- Use your GP practice's approved contact method to send the checked letter, and contact NHS 111 directly instead if you have urgent or worrying symptoms.
Prompt
Write a clear, concise letter to my GP using only the information I provide below. Do not diagnose me, suggest treatment, invent facts or change the severity of anything I describe. Put the main reason for contacting the practice first, then set out the symptoms or issue, when it started, how it has changed, relevant medical history, medicines, what I have already tried, and the specific help or appointment I am requesting. Mark any missing information as [I need to add this]. Use plain British English and a calm, factual tone. Keep it suitable for sending to a GP practice. After the draft, give me a short checklist of factual details to verify and identify any information that is unnecessary to include. If the symptoms are urgent or worrying, tell me to contact NHS 111 rather than relying on this letter. My information: [paste only the relevant details here].
Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.
Hand it to a person
The distant thirdA person who owns the outcome does this end to end, worth it when the failure is dear.
What it gets wrong
- AI cannot tell whether your symptoms need an urgent appointment or emergency care.
- AI cannot ask the follow-up questions a clinician would use to understand an unclear account.
- AI can make your description sound more certain, mild or medically specific than you intended.
- Pasting health information into a chatbot creates a privacy risk that you must assess before using it.
Even on a YES, the friction has a name: stakes of error, private data access and judgement under ambiguity.
How we scored this
Five axes, each scored nought to two by hand: ten means AI carries the task cleanly, and the thresholds that turn a total into YES, PARTLY or NO are published in the methodology. Each axis name links to its definition.
| Axis | Score (0–2) |
|---|---|
| Output | 2 |
| Inputs | 2 |
| Verification | 1 |
| Liability | 1 |
| Effort delta | 2 |
| Total | 8 / 10 |
The methodology and its thresholds are published in full.
FAQ
- Can AI write a letter to my GP?
- Yes. It can organise your account and draft a clear letter, but you must check every factual statement before sending it.
- Is it safe to use AI to write to my GP?
- It is reasonable for drafting if you remove unnecessary personal data and check the wording against your own experience. Do not use the draft to assess symptoms, and contact NHS 111 about urgent or worrying symptoms.
- What should I include in a letter to my GP?
- Include the main reason for contacting the practice, when it started, how it has changed, relevant symptoms, medicines, relevant history, what you have tried and what help you are requesting. Leave out details that do not help the GP understand or respond to the issue.
- Can AI tell me what is wrong with me?
- No. AI can help you describe your symptoms, but it cannot provide a reliable diagnosis or replace a GP assessment. Contact NHS 111 for urgent or worrying symptoms.
Nearby answers
Assessed by gpt-5.6-luna (gpt-5.6-luna) on 2026-08-13, second-checked by an independent model. Wrong somewhere? Email [email protected] and it gets re-checked.
The newsletter
AI news, new answers and product picks, straight to your inbox.