Purpose
The opening paragraph explains the transfer, the diagnosis and date, and the three areas of care the nursing home must provide. The reader knows immediately what the letter is for.
OET Nursing Writing
OET Nursing Transfer Letter Sample: Hospital to Care Home
This OET nursing transfer letter sample gives you a complete practice task: stroke unit case notes, the writing instructions, a model letter to a care home nurse 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 an OET nursing transfer letter?
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. A transfer letter hands over a patient's ongoing care to nurses in another setting, such as a care home, rehabilitation unit or another ward, so it focuses on the care the receiving team must provide from day one. 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: transfer of Mr Arthur Bennett
These case notes describe a fictional patient and were written for practice. Read them for five minutes and decide what the care home nurse needs before you look at the task.
Patient details
- Name: Mr Arthur Bennett
- DOB: 17/04/1944 (82 y.o.)
- Admitted: 03/10/2026; transfer: 24/10/2026
- Stroke Unit, Hillcrest General Hospital
- Diagnosis: L ischaemic stroke: R-sided weakness, mild expressive dysphasia
Social background
- Widower (wife died 2023); previously lived alone in a bungalow, independent
- Son, Michael, lives 2 hrs away; next of kin; plans to visit at weekends
- Retired engineer; enjoys radio news
Medical history
- Hypertension (2010): amlodipine 5 mg OD (continued)
- Osteoarthritis
- Cataract surgery (2018)
- NKDA
Nursing notes
- 04/10: SLT assessment: dysphagia; soft & bite-sized diet (IDDSI level 6) and mildly thick fluids (IDDSI level 2); sit fully upright for meals and 30 mins after; supervise at meals
- 10/10: walks short distances with walking frame + assistance of 1; transfers with assistance of 1
- R arm weakness: needs help cutting food and with buttons
- 12/10: grade 1 pressure area on sacrum; resolved 18/10 with 3-hourly repositioning and pressure-relieving mattress
- Mild expressive dysphasia: word-finding difficulty; understanding good; responds well to short questions and extra time
- Continent with prompting every 2–3 hrs
- Mood low at times
Transfer plan
- New medicines: clopidogrel 75 mg OD, atorvastatin 80 mg ON; medication chart and 7-day supply sent
- Continue 3-hourly repositioning and pressure-relieving mattress
- Community stroke team (physio and OT) to visit weekly
- SLT review 2/52; stroke clinic 6/52 (appointments in discharge summary)
Writing task
You are the nurse in charge of the Stroke Unit at Hillcrest General Hospital. Mr Bennett is being transferred to a nursing home today. Using the information in the case notes, write a letter to Ms Grace Miller, Nurse in Charge, Oakwood Nursing Home, 22 Beech Road, Hillcrest, who will take over his care.
- 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: transfer letter to the care home nurse
Compare this model with your own letter. There is more than one way to score highly, but strong answers make the same selection decisions.
Ms Grace Miller
Nurse in Charge
Oakwood Nursing Home
22 Beech Road
Hillcrest
24 October 2026
Dear Ms Miller,
Re: Mr Arthur Bennett, DOB 17/04/1944
I am writing to hand over the care of Mr Bennett, aged 82, who is being transferred to your nursing home today following a left-sided ischaemic stroke on 3 October. He requires support with eating, mobility and pressure-area care.
Mr Bennett has right-sided weakness and mild expressive dysphasia, although his understanding is good. Please use short questions and allow him time to respond.
Following a speech and language therapy assessment, he requires a soft and bite-sized diet (IDDSI level 6) and mildly thick fluids (IDDSI level 2). Please ensure he sits fully upright for meals and for 30 minutes afterwards, and supervise him while eating. He also needs help to cut food and fasten buttons.
He walks short distances and transfers with a walking frame and the assistance of one person. A grade 1 sacral pressure area resolved with three-hourly repositioning and a pressure-relieving mattress, which should continue.
He has been started on clopidogrel and atorvastatin, and his medication chart and a seven-day supply are enclosed. His son, Michael, is his next of kin.
Please contact me if you require further information.
Yours sincerely,
Nurse in Charge
Stroke Unit, Hillcrest 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 182 words.
Why this letter works
The model is mapped to the six criteria examiners use. 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 prioritises safety: the swallowing plan with exact diet and fluid levels, supervision at meals, the level of help needed to move, and pressure-area care. These are the details the care home acts on from the first meal.
Conciseness & Clarity
Three weeks on a stroke unit are summarised in a few sentences. Dated ward entries become current needs, and the resolved pressure area is mentioned only to explain why repositioning should continue.
Genre & Style
The tone is professional, nurse to nurse, with clear polite requests (“Please ensure”, “Please use”). Abbreviations such as SLT and OD are written out in full.
Organisation & Layout
Purpose, then communication, then eating and drinking, then mobility and skin, then medicines and family. Grouping by care need, rather than by date, makes the letter easy to act on.
Language
Accurate, specific language for the diet and fluid levels, and controlled tenses: past for the stroke and the resolved pressure area, present for his current needs.
Included because the reader needs it
- Transfer today after a left-sided ischaemic stroke on 3 October
- Right-sided weakness and mild expressive dysphasia, with communication advice
- Soft and bite-sized diet, mildly thick fluids, upright positioning and supervision
- Help needed to cut food and fasten buttons
- Walking frame and assistance of one person
- Resolved sacral pressure area and continued repositioning
- New medicines, medication chart and supply
- Son as next of kin
Left out because it does not change the next step
- Retired engineer and late wife
- Cataract surgery and osteoarthritis
- Amlodipine (unchanged and on the medication chart)
- Exact medicine doses (on the enclosed chart)
- Dates of each ward entry
- Follow-up appointments and community stroke team visits (in the discharge summary; a short mention is acceptable if you have words left)
Common mistakes in OET nursing transfer letters
These errors cost marks in transfer letters again and again, and each one is easy to fix once you can see it.
- Writing the hospital stay day by day instead of describing current care needs.
- Leaving out the exact diet and fluid levels, which is a safety risk for a patient with dysphagia.
- Forgetting to say how much help the patient needs to walk and transfer.
- Mentioning the pressure area without saying what care must continue.
- Listing every medicine and dose when a chart is already being sent.
- Using abbreviations such as SLT, OD or ON in the letter.
- Ending without a clear closing line or contact offer.
For the method behind these decisions, read the OET Writing tips or see how the OET course for nurses trains letter selection. Try the other practice letters too: the nursing discharge letter, the nursing transfer letter, the medicine referral letter, the pharmacy letter to a GP and the physiotherapy discharge letter.
Write your own version and get it marked
Write your own transfer 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 nursing transfer letter FAQ
More exam questions are answered on the full OET FAQ page.
How long should an OET nursing transfer 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 is the difference between a transfer letter and a discharge letter?
A transfer letter hands care over to nurses in another setting, such as a care home or rehabilitation unit, so it focuses on the daily care they must provide. A discharge letter usually goes to a community professional who will support a patient returning home.
Should I list every medicine in a transfer letter?
No. Mention new or changed medicines and anything the reader must give or monitor. If the case notes say a medication chart is being sent, refer to it instead of copying every dose.
Can I get my OET nursing 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 transfer 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.