Salisbury Hospital Ophthalmology
Urgent and emergency referrals
Emergency and urgent referrals needing to be seen within 1 week to be sent by email to sft.arc@nhs.net. A phone call is no longer required when referring using this email address.
The emergency bleep (01722 336 262 – ask for bleep 1625) is available Monday – Friday (9am – 5pm), and should be reserved for patients requiring immediate review or advice.
The previous urgent email address, sft.ophthalmologyadvice@nhs.net, is now for advice and guidance only. Please note this is not manned 24 hours a day, and should only be used for non-urgent queries.
Eye clinic number for general enquiries, 01722 336262 Ext. 5366 or Ext 5363
Eye clinic secretary (Sarah Haycock) for enquiries about a previous patient or ongoing care 01722 42935
Wet AMD fast track referral pathway
In March 2009 a direct referral system was introduced in the Salisbury area for patients with recent onset of wet AMD to enable rapid assessment of patient suitability for treatment by an ophthalmologist. This referral route is only appropriate for patients that meet the following referral guidelines:-
Presenting symptoms in the affected eye – there must be a less than 3 month history of at least one of the following:
- visual loss
- spontaneously reported distortion
- onset missing patch / blurring in central vision
NB Corrected VA must be 6/96 or better in the affected eye NB Note amended VA from 6/60 previously to 6/96 now due to new NICE guidelines.
The referral form is available below. This form should be e-mailed directly to Salisbury Hospital at sft.ophthalmologycentralbooking@nhs.net.
Please do not refer dry AMD, patients whose VA has already dropped to below 6/96 or patients whose symptoms are not of recent onset via this route.
Wet amd referral form
Urgent & Emergency Through CUES
Please be aware that when referring urgent or emergency patients to Salisbury District Hospital, if a patient needs to be seen in less than a week, they must be referred as an emergency in order to be triaged within the appropriate timeframe.
Once you have submitted your CUES episode with the assessment outcome as ‘Emergency Referral to HES’ or ‘Urgent Referral to HES’.
- Click the ‘Refer to HES’ red tab
- The drop-down menu must be selected as:
‘Emergency Eye Services – Emergency – Emergency Clinic Only’
These options will be automatically pre-selected in you chose the ‘Emergency Referral to HES’ option before submitting the CUES episode. However, if you selected ‘Urgent Referral to HES’, you can manually change the drop-down options to the above.
You should then select ‘SALISBURY NHS FT – EMERGENCY’ which delivers the referral directly to the emergency eye department, where they are immediately triaged Monday – Friday (8am – 4pm).
Referrals received outside of these times will be triaged the following working day.
The emergency bleep (01722 336 262 – ask for bleep 1625) is available Monday – Friday (9am – 5pm), and should be reserved for patients requiring immediate review or advice.
Outside of the above hours, patients who cannot wait until the following working day should be sent to the Emergency Department (A&E).
Urgent referral options are listed under Ophthalmology – Urgent, and then by clinic type e.g. Cornea.
These go to the hospital via ERS. This is a multi-step process that can take a few days to complete. As a result, you should only use this for urgent referrals that can wait at least a week to be seen.
Salisbury District Hospital have an email address for advice and guidance – sft.ophthalmologyadvice@nhs.net. Please note this is not manned 24 hours a day, and should only be used for non-urgent queries.
If you have any questions, please contact us below: