If a GP has a patient that is extremely ill and they require immediate care then please call 999 and request an ambulance to bring them in to hospital.
If you believe that your patient’s life is not in immediate danger but they need urgent care and you either want them to be seen today or you want advice from one of our senior clinicians then please call the relevant numbers below depending on whether you believe it is a medical or surgical issue.
Referrals can be emailed to the ED at this address: Reception.sphutc@nhs.net
Medical Emergencies
The MAU is open 24/7 Monday to Sunday and supports the management of all medical activity sent to St. Peter’s Hospital.
- The unit provides a triage and fast-track assessment for all Adult Medical referrals, according to specific pathways, thereby easing A&E pressures.
- The aim is to provide a better experience for patients and help GPs access urgent medical assessment for appropriate patients, avoiding unnecessary admission by offering other treatment/pathway options, including clinical advice.
For all (haemo-dynamically-stable) GP adult medical referrals please use the contact numbers and process below. If your patient is at risk because of a social issue and does not require medical care then please call the Intermediate Care team on 01932 872929 and they will try to support you with care options. This number is answered 24/7.
How do you use the new MAU Process?
- Bleep the on call Registrar on 5951 by calling switchboard on 01932 872000.
- If unable to get through please call the Ambulatory Care land line 01932 726439. ;
- The Patient Navigator will answer your call and will discuss the referral with you and will either:
- Transfer your call to the on-call SpR/Consultant who will be able to offer you specialist advice including treatment options to support admission avoidance
- Offer you an OPD option for a non-urgent patient specialty/MDT assessment
- Offer you an appointment at a weekly GP ‘hot clinic’ (which will run in addition to our usual specialty clinics) which will offer GPs another option to avoid (where appropriate) same day referral. We expect these appointments to be provided within 1 week.
- If following discussion it is agreed that your patient should be seen we will agree an approximate time of arrival and ask that either the patient is brought in by family/carers or that you liaise with your ambulance service: SECAMB / South Central Ambulance Service / London Ambulance as appropriate), who will coordinate transfer of your patient.
Surgical Emergencies
We would like to advise GPs that effective from Thursday 12th August 2013 the process for GPs to send in a patient as a Surgical Emergency should be as follows
- Please phone 01932 722026 – your call will be answered by either a senior nurse or junior doctor who will take the patient details from you and agree the admission details. Alternatively if you need to speak to a more senior doctor to discuss the patient they will take your contact details and ensure that you are phoned back quickly.
- Patients should then be sent in as agreed with the usual GP letter.
- GPs no longer need to call switchboard and bleep the surgical specialty on-call doctor to discuss an emergency surgical admission.
- This number also replaces the Emergency Surgical Consultant Mobile number that has been used over the last year.
Please note that we are also working on extending our SAU space and our plan is that this will enable us to admit most surgical admissions directly into SAU. We will provide further information on the date for this. In the meantime we are trying to admit as many GP surgical emergency patients as we can directly into SAU but we are limited by space and therefore some patients have to be seen in A&E.
Paediatric Emergencies
St. Peter’s Hospital Children’s Casualty is open 7 days a week. GPs wishing to refer children for admission or same day emergency assessment, should contact the on hospital switch board and ask for bleep number 5315.