Purpose
The opening paragraph says why the GP is receiving the letter and states the main action straight away: a follow-up chest X-ray in six weeks. The reason for that request is explained later, where it fits.
OET Medicine Writing
OET Medicine Discharge Letter Sample: Hospital to GP
This OET medicine discharge letter sample gives you a complete practice task: hospital case notes for a patient treated for pneumonia, the writing instructions, a model discharge letter to the GP and a criterion-by-criterion explanation of why it works. Write your own letter first, then compare.
45 min5 minutes reading plus 40 minutes writing
180–200Words in the body of the letter
6Writing criteria the examiner uses
What is a medicine discharge letter in OET Writing?
OET Writing gives you 5 minutes to read the case notes and 40 minutes to write one letter, with a body of about 180–200 words. In a discharge letter, a hospital doctor tells the GP what happened during the admission and, most importantly, what the GP needs to do next. This page gives you a full practice task, a model answer and an explanation of every selection decision.
Reading time: 5 minutes
You read the case notes and the task before the writing time starts. Use it to decide who the reader is and what they must do next.
Writing time: 40 minutes
You write one letter. A useful split is 5 minutes planning, 30 minutes writing and 5 minutes checking purpose, dates and doses.
How to use this sample
Read the case notes, write your own letter under time and only then compare it with the model answer. Copying the model teaches far less than finding your own selection mistakes.
What the examiner checks
Six criteria: Purpose, Content, Conciseness & Clarity, Genre & Style, Organisation & Layout, and Language.
Case notes: discharge of Mr Graham Pierce
These case notes describe a fictional patient and were written for practice. Read them for five minutes and decide what the GP needs to act on before you look at the task.
Patient details
- Name: Mr Graham Pierce
- DOB: 30/07/1964 (62 y.o.)
- Admitted: 15/10/2026; discharged: 19/10/2026
- Ward 4 (Respiratory), Riverside General Hospital
- GP: Dr Sarah Lin, Riverside Surgery
Social background
- Lives with wife; works as a delivery driver
- Smoker: 20 cigarettes/day for 40 years; wants to stop
- Alcohol: 6 units/week
Medical history and medicines
- Hypertension (2019): ramipril 5 mg OD
- Appendicectomy (1985)
- NKDA
Hospital course
- 15/10: productive cough, fever 38.6°C, breathlessness; SpO2 92% on air
- CXR: R lower lobe consolidation; diagnosis community-acquired pneumonia
- IV amoxicillin + oral clarithromycin started
- 17/10: afebrile; switched to oral amoxicillin 500 mg TDS
- 19/10: SpO2 96% on air; mobilising independently; appetite improving
Discharge plan
- Complete oral amoxicillin 500 mg TDS until 22/10/2026
- Continue ramipril 5 mg OD
- Referred to community stop-smoking service
- GP: arrange follow-up CXR in 6/52 to confirm resolution (age and smoking history)
- Return advice: worsening breathlessness or fever
Writing task
You are the doctor on Ward 4, Riverside General Hospital. Mr Pierce is being discharged today. Using the information in the case notes, write a letter to his GP, Dr Sarah Lin, Riverside Surgery, 22 Mill Street, Riverside.
- Expand the relevant notes into complete sentences.
- Do not use note form.
- Use letter format.
- The body of the letter should be approximately 180–200 words.
Practice material written by OET with Dr Hesham. It is not an official OET test task.
Model answer: medicine discharge letter to the GP
Compare this model with your own letter. There is more than one way to score highly, but strong answers make the same selection decisions.
Dr Sarah Lin
General Practitioner
Riverside Surgery
22 Mill Street
Riverside
19 October 2026
Dear Dr Lin,
Re: Mr Graham Pierce, DOB 30/07/1964
I am writing to inform you that Mr Pierce, aged 62, was discharged today following treatment for community-acquired pneumonia. I would be grateful if you could arrange a follow-up chest X-ray in six weeks.
He was admitted on 15 October with a productive cough, fever and breathlessness, and his chest X-ray showed right lower lobe consolidation. He was treated with intravenous amoxicillin and oral clarithromycin, and his fever settled within 48 hours. He was then switched to oral amoxicillin 500 mg three times daily, which he should complete on 22 October.
On discharge, his oxygen saturation was 96% on room air and he was mobilising independently. He should continue taking ramipril 5 mg once daily for his hypertension.
Given his age and his 40-year history of smoking 20 cigarettes a day, the follow-up chest X-ray is needed to confirm that the consolidation has resolved. He is keen to stop smoking and has been referred to the community stop-smoking service.
He has been advised to seek medical help if his breathlessness or fever returns. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you require further information.
Yours sincerely,
Ward Doctor
Ward 4, Riverside General Hospital
Practice material written by OET with Dr Hesham. It is not an official OET test task. The body of this model answer is 185 words.
Why this letter works
The model is mapped to the six criteria examiners use. According to OET, a Grade B letter typically scores 2 out of 3 for Purpose and 5 out of 7 for each of the other criteria. Selection is the skill behind most of them, so the lists below show which case notes were kept and which were left out.
Content
The letter gives the diagnosis, the key findings, the treatment and the response, then everything the GP must act on or know: the antibiotic end date, the continued ramipril, the X-ray and the stop-smoking referral. Old surgery and alcohol are left out.
Conciseness & Clarity
Four days of ward notes become one paragraph on the admission. Observations are reduced to the two that matter, the fever settling and the oxygen saturation on discharge.
Genre & Style
The tone is professional, hospital doctor to GP colleague. Requests are polite (“I would be grateful if you could”), and the clinical terms suit a medical reader without over-explaining.
Organisation & Layout
Purpose and main request first, then the admission and treatment, then the discharge status and medicines, then the reason for the X-ray and the smoking plan, then safety-netting. Standard letter layout with the recipient, date and Re: line.
Language
Accurate tenses (past for the admission, present and modal verbs for the plan), dates and doses copied correctly, and no note-form abbreviations such as CXR, TDS, OD or SpO2.
Included because the reader needs it
- Reason for writing: discharge after community-acquired pneumonia
- Request for a follow-up chest X-ray in six weeks, and why
- Presenting symptoms and chest X-ray finding
- Antibiotic treatment, response and end date of the oral course
- Oxygen saturation and mobility on discharge
- Continued ramipril for hypertension
- Smoking history and stop-smoking referral
- Advice to seek help if symptoms return
Left out because it does not change the next step
- Appendicectomy in 1985
- Alcohol intake (6 units a week)
- Job as a delivery driver
- Exact temperature and admission oxygen saturation
- Day-by-day ward observations
- Improving appetite
Common mistakes in OET medicine discharge letters
These errors cost marks in discharge letters again and again, and each one is easy to fix once you can see it.
- Hiding the GP's action, the follow-up chest X-ray, in the last paragraph without explaining why it is needed.
- Retelling the admission day by day instead of summarising it.
- Forgetting the end date of the antibiotic course.
- Leaving out medicines the GP must continue, such as ramipril.
- Copying every observation, including values that no longer matter.
- Using note-form abbreviations such as CXR, TDS and SpO2 in the letter.
- Missing the safety-netting advice the patient was given.
For the method behind these decisions, read the OET Writing tips or see the OET course for doctors. Try the other practice letters too: the nursing discharge letter, the nursing referral letter, the nursing transfer letter, the medicine referral letter, the medicine discharge letter, the pharmacy letter to a GP, the physiotherapy discharge letter and the occupational therapy referral letter. All of them are listed on the free OET sample tests page.
Write your own version and get it marked
Write your own discharge letter for this task in 40 minutes, then send it for OET writing correction. Each corrected letter comes back with an estimated score, detailed correction and voice-note feedback on WhatsApp. If you are not sure your English is ready for OET yet, start with the free placement test.
OET medicine discharge letter FAQ
More exam questions are answered on the full OET FAQ page.
How long should an OET medicine discharge letter be?
The body of the letter should be about 180–200 words. Writing a little more or less is not penalised on its own, but long letters usually include irrelevant case notes, which costs marks for content and conciseness.
What does the GP need most from a discharge letter?
What to do next: medicines to finish or continue, follow-up tests and any referrals already made. Summarise the admission briefly, then make the actions easy to find.
Should I include every test result from the admission?
No. Include the results that explain the diagnosis and the follow-up, such as the chest X-ray finding and the oxygen saturation on discharge, and leave out readings that no longer affect care.
Can I get my OET discharge letter marked?
Yes. Write your own version of this task under timed conditions, then send it for OET writing correction. You receive an estimated score, detailed correction and voice-note feedback on WhatsApp.
Next step
Find out what your discharge letter would score
Write this task under time, send it for correction and get an estimated score with voice-note feedback on exactly what to change.