How Consultant Connect can help provide the best care this Urology Awareness Month

A Trainee Advanced Paramedic Practitioner in NHS Lanarkshire attended to a patient who had recently had a procedure for kidney stones and had a catheter as a result. The patient’s wife had called the ambulance service because there was blood in his catheter, and was concerned:

‘At the scene, I used the Consultant Connect App to speak to a urology specialist at University Hospital Monklands. Monklands isn’t the patient’s nearest A&E department, but the urology department in Lanarkshire is based there. If the patient had been conveyed to his nearest A&E department first, he would’ve likely needed a transfer to the urology department at Monklands at some point. I knew the hospital transfer would not have been a high priority in this scenario, and the patient could’ve been waiting 12+ hours.

‘I spoke to the on-call urologist, and he happened to know the patient and was happy to speak directly with the family. Later, I phoned the patient to confirm he’d received a call-back, and the urologist had said he was happy for the patient’s wife to drive him directly to the urology department at Monklands, bypassing ED. On this occasion, utilising Consultant Connect saved an ambulance being used for patient conveyance, it eliminated his ED wait, and, most importantly, it eradicated the delay in his care; he got the response he needed the first time.’

– Ceri Wares.

A GP in NHS Forth Valley sent a patient for an X-ray, and the report came back suggesting possible cancer metastases and that the patient should undergo an urgent MRI scan:

‘Booking an MRI scan – even on an urgent request – can take many weeks or months, so I used my surgery’s Consultant Connect Dial-In Number to call the radiologist and got straight through. He reviewed the X-ray and said it was definitely cancer metastases, and the patient did not require an MRI scan. Instead, he advised that I investigate the cancer’s primary and then refer to that specialty.

‘The benefit was that we didn’t waste any time getting an urgent MRI scan, and I got the patient back into the surgery that same day. I took his bloods, we identified the following day that prostate cancer was the source, and I referred him urgently to urology. There was no delay in the patient’s care because I had quick and easy access to a radiologist to say, “This doesn’t sound right, can you have a second look?” and that’s ultimately why we contact radiology. It’s often the reports that are ambiguous or not entirely clear, where specialist guidance helps, and in this case, that worked really well.’

– Dr David Herron.

A Lead Nurse at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde provides the Outpatient Parenteral Antibiotic Therapy (OPAT) pathway via Consultant Connect to provide an alternative to hospital admissions for patients with other conditions, such as cellulitis or complicated UTIs, which require a shorter stay:

‘Many of these patients are more susceptible to having repeat episodes of UT and cellulitis, so primary care clinicians know they can refer the patients back to us to avoid an admission.

‘With UTIs, these patients tend to be more elderly, and if we can avoid them being in hospital, then that is preferable to avoid the complication of inpatient treatment. If they’re happy to attend once a day for IV therapy, then this also frees up beds for patients who need them. We’re probably freeing up hospital beds in the region of 320 to 350 per week at the moment, which has escalated significantly since we expanded the team.’

– Liz Collison.