All specialities at Guy’s and St Thomas’ will be reviewing all of their services, updating the current published directory of services, and preparing for all appointments to be available to book via e-RS (formerly Choose & Book) . This work is being undertaken so the Trust can deliver on the e-RS CQUIN.  In addition, from 1 October 2018, providers will not be paid for referrals received outside e-RS.  

As part of this work, and in collaboration with our local CCG/CSU colleagues, we have put in place a phased rollout of e-RS.  This consists of each group of services undertaking preparatory work (such as updating the Directory of Services (DoS) and ensuring capacity is in place ahead of a two-month period, during which time we will be actively communicating that this service will no longer receive paper referrals.  At the end of this period we will no longer accept paper referrals.   

The following services are included in our Phase 1 period:

• Diabetes
• Dermatology
• Gynaecology
• Ophthalmology
• Neurology
• Two week wait
• Antenatal  (Assessment Service)
• Lambeth Integrated MSK Service (Assessment Service)

Over the next two months we will be promoting the use of e-RS for these services  and from 1 September we will no longer accept email orpaper referrals from GPs.

The aim of the phased rollout is to streamline our work processes as we move towards receiving 100% of our GP referrals via e-RS, while ensuring we continue to deliver safe and efficient care for our patients.

We welcome your feedback on our Directory of Services for the above areas.  Please contact Arti Trivedi (e-RS Manager_  arti.trivedi@gstt.nhs.uk for issues relating to e-RS only. 

If you have any queries regarding the e-RS (training etc please contact your local GP IT facilitator.

Following a succesful trial a dedicated GP priority phone line has now been established and is available 24/7, with our operators able to put you through directly to the specialty you require. 

GP hotline 020 7188 4488 provides:

• Better primary care access to specialty advice
• One number to access decision makers across all specialities
• More senior advice, more rapidly available
• Direct triage to speciality clinic if appropriate
• Helping to prevent unnecessary emergency attendances
• Available 24/7  

Please note: this GP helpline is for clinical advice only. For any queries about existing referrals or patient appointments, contact the related service directly as you currently do.  

We welcome GP feedback, please contact Marie Stevens, Project Manager, Marie.Stevens@gstt.nhs.uk. 

@home provides acute healthcare in the patient’s home or their normal place of residence. The service aims to:

• prevents avoidable admissions and readmissions.
• supports early discharge from hospital.

From this month General Neurology, Headache and Epilepsy services at Guy’s and St Thomas’ will only be accepting new GP referrals from Lambeth, Southwark, Lewisham, Bromley, Bexley and Greenwich (also practices in Battersea and south Westminster). This is due to a significant increase in GP referrals impacting our capacity to offer patient appointments within a reasonable timeframe.  This decision is supported by our local commissioners in south east London.  

We will continue to accept GP referrals for patients with other conditions provided within our Neurology Services.  Information on the broad range of Neurology services offer is available on the Trust website. GPs can also refer to the information on the Directory of Services given on the NHS e-Referral Service website. 

Tertiary referrals will also be accepted from all areas.

If you require more information you can contact our Neurology Department on 020 7188 3965

For patients who do not meet the two week pathway for skin pigmented lesions, changing lesions, moles, basal cell carcinoma, skin screening etc. please do not use the Guy’s and St Thomas’ general dermatology service. This is causing a lot of inappropriate referrals into the service and internal redirections. There is an alert on the general service (“For routine skin cancer screening use clinic type “Basal Cell Carcinoma” to refer to the correct clinic”) which should help GPs refer to the correct service for these referrals.

Use of “Not Otherwise Specified” Clinic type

Please ensure when referring the patient to a service you select the most appropriate service for that condition.  eg under Ophthalmology our services are set up under specific conditions like cataracts, glaucoma etc, linked to the most appropriate clinic type(s).  The clinic type “not otherwise specified” should only be used when there is not a more appropriate clinic type available.  

“Dietetics - Weight Management - Referral” and named “Weight Management Pilot Referral Form SOW1435”.

For further info contact Ele King (Specialist Diabetes and Obesity Dietitian) eleanor.king2@nhs.net

When booking appointments for patients, please only do so when the patient is with you and/or has agreed the appointment date and time. Our access policy states that patients will only be able to reschedule their appointment on one occasion. If they cancel and reschedule an appointment on more than one occasion they may be discharged back to their GP.  In these circumstances, the patient may be required to start their wait again. A number of patients are contacting us to reschedule appointments that they have not booked and this unfairly impacts their referral to treatment time.

Southwark CCG has launched a new adult weight management programme which features long-term follow-up of patients. The programme is designed to take patients through activities and tools such as:

• Setting SMART targets
• Understanding lifestyle change
• Helping them to identify hunger and the reasons why they over eat
• How to keep motivated and minimise relapses
• How to read food labels
• How to cook and eat healthily on a budget

From 17 October our haematology laboratory at St Thomas’ Hospital will have a new assay for measuring ESR.

The special black topped blood collection tube will no longer be required; please take a lilac (purple) topped tube instead; this is normally used to measure the Full Blood Count (FBC).

The FBC and ESR can be performed on the same lilac tube.

At the same time we are also updating our ESR reference range to reflect the patients age as below.

• Please use The correct tQuest template (practices cannot use their own template on the same form) such as EMIS forms
• Tests must not be handwritten on tQuest form
• Acronyms should beavoidedwhen requesting tests – please write out the full names of the tests required
• The correct font size shall be used to fit all necessary information on the labels
• All paper should be correctly aligned in the printer before printing tQuest request forms
• Printing must be clear and legible
• Additional tests must not be requested in the clinical details field.

The annual Guy’s and St Thomas’ website survey is open. We want to understand how useful and engaging the information on our website is. Your feedback will help us improve the information and online services that we provide. 

At Guy’s and St Thomas’ we are accountable to our patients, staff and local people for the delivery of high quality, safe care. We are really keen for new members to join to help us to do this.

Involving as many people as possible will make sure our services reflect the needs of our  patients and local residents.

Membership is free. Anyone aged 18 and over who either lives in Southwark, Lambeth, Wandsworth, Lewisham and Westminster or has been a patient of the Trust in the last five years can join.

The Coaching and Mentoring Team is delighted to announce the creation of an accredited ‘Introduction to Coaching’ short course, which offers an overview of coaching skills for those wishing to use a coaching style with others: colleagues, patients, students, friends or family!

The benefits of using a coaching approach with others include:

• Increased ownership and commitment to/for an individual's performance, targets and goals
• Improved awareness of personal learning and development
• Enhanced ability to find solutions to issues.

We would like to invite you to the launch of the new Accessibility Guides that have been developed in partnership with disabledGo. These guides will support patients, families and carers to find the most accessible routes to our hospitals and community sites.

The event will take place on 21 July at 11.30am-12.30pm in Governors’ Hall at St Thomas’ Hospital.

If you or any of your patients would like to attend please email events@disabledgo.com. 

The next Schwartz centre round is taking place on Friday 21 July, in the Nevin Lecture Theatre at St Thomas’ Hospital from 1:30-2:30pm. Lunch will be provided for attendees from 1pm (if you have any particular dietary requirements please email qips@gstt.nhs.uk). The title of this round is “We all make mistakes”.  

A two-day multidisciplinary course for hospital and community staff for GPs, nurses, healtcare workers and anyone who cares for people in their last year or so of life.