Other GP Information
Contacting staff for advice
If you require a specific urological opinion, you should contact the appropriate Specialist Registrar; it is unlikely that a pre-registration house officer or clinical fellow will be able to answer your questions. Alternatively, you can contact the on-call Consultant through the main hospital switchboard.
If you simply require an outpatient appointment for a patient, this should be made through the appropriate Consultant by phone, fax or letter and not through the junior staff.
Cross-referrals
Please try to avoid referring a patient generically (or directly to another Consultant) when the patient has previously seen one Consultant for the same problem in the recent past (i.e. within the last two years).
If the Consultant who saw the patient previously is not clear, all previous correspondence from the Urology Department includes the name of the Consultant under whose care that patient has been managed, even if such correspondence is from junior staff.
Discharge summaries
We aim to produce a computer-generated, preliminary, discharge note on the day of discharge. However, the information in this should be regarded as provisional until a final summary has been produced and vetted by a more senior staff member.
You should receive a formal discharge summary within 10 days of the patient's discharge; occasionally, in the event of difficult problems such as complicated histology, the summary may be delayed.
If you do not receive a discharge summary, please contact the relevant Consultant's secretary.
Emergency admissions
Please contact our House Surgeons or Clinical Fellows for emergency admissions. If you need advice as to whether a patient actually needs admission, contact the Specialist Registrar or Consultant on-call.
If you cannot contact the appropriate member of staff or, if you feel that the advice or recommendations you have been given by any member of staff are unsatisfactory, please discuss the problem directly, day or night, with the Consultant involved.
Erectile dysfunction clinic
Referral to Carol Edmunds, Specialist Nurse at Hinchingbrooke Hospital.
Please note that this service is not, currently, available at Addenbrooke's.
Fax number
The fax number of the department is +44 (0)1223 216069.
When sending a fax to the Department of Urology, especially for a generic referral, please confirm the fax with a copy of the letter in the hospital post.
Please mark the letter with an annotation that it is confirmation of a fax, to avoid more than one appointment being made for the patient.
Generic referrals
Generic referrals are accepted but please do not make them for patients who have seen a specific Consultant before for the same problem; patients previously seen for the same problem within the last 2 years should be referred to the Consultant who has seen the patient in the past.
However, not all problems can be managed in a gerneric manner. Please consult the referral guidelines for information regarding who should receive referrals for specific urological problems.
Haematuria clinic
"Fast track" referral form or fax to 01223 216069.
Investigations prior to hospital assessment
Please try to arrange these at Addenbrooke's, if possible, and ensure that the results are available before your patient is referred; we ask you not to send referral letters until all the results are available. Laboratory & radiology results at Addenbrooke's can, of course, be accessed from our clinics but results from other centres cannot.
If you require advice on which investigations to perform for a specific clinical problem, please contact the Consultant concerned.
If X-rays or other investigations have been performed elsewhere, please ask for them to be sent to us before the patient's appointment or ask the patient to bring them to the appointment. For X-rays or scans, this may necessitate the electronic transfer of images.
Lithotripsy administration
Lithotripsy can only be sanctioned by Consultants.
Administrative enquiries should be directed to the lithotripsy co-ordinator by telephoning 01223 275215 or by e-mail.
Clinical and patient enquiries must go through the Consultant responsible for management of the patient and not through the co-ordinator.
Outpatient appointments
All referral letters are vetted by the Consultants and appropriate priority is allocated within 48 hours of receipt. Facilities are always available for genuinely urgent appointment at short notice; these should be arranged directly with the Consultant concerned.
The clinic receptionists, secretaries and junior staff are not authorised to make urgent outpatient appointments.
Do not ask patients to ring to expedite their own appointments. If you wish to expedite an appointment on medical grounds, discuss it directly with the Consultant involved or fax to 01223 216069.
