Patients can come to the Sheffield Hand Centre by a variety of routes:
A planned referral by their General Practitioner, referral by another consultant at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals or another local hospital.
As an emergency referral from minor injuries at Royal Hallamshire Hospital, the Emergency Department at Northern General Hospital or another local emergency department.
The patient experience is different for those referred for planned care (see below) and for emergency patients.
After seeing your GP with your problem and agreeing to the referral the GP will write to us. The referral will be read by a consultant and an appointment confirmed. Details are usually sent out by post with a map of how to find us. When you arrive in the clinic reception let the clerical officer know who you are and which clinic you have an appointment with. There will often be several clinics running at the same time so please don’t be concerned if other patients are called ahead of you, they may be seeing someone else.
The surgeon may need further investigations to help make a diagnosis or plan treatment these will be organised from your appointment, for example nerve tests or scans. You will then see the surgeon again with the results. Sometimes treatment will be decided or even delivered at the first appointment. If surgery is agreed on then you will be added to the waiting list and pre-operative assessment will be arranged.
When someone suffers a sudden serious problem with their hand – usually through injury or infection – they will be referred to our on call team or trauma review clinic. That referral can come from the GP, minor injuries at RHH, the walk in centre, ED at NGH or another hospital in South Yorkshire/North Derbyshire.
Between the hours of 7am and 7pm weekdays and 7am to 1pm Saturdays emergency referrals are assessed in the SHC. Each weekday morning there is a Trauma Review Clinic which most patients from the previous day are booked into. In that clinic a consultant decides on the coruse of treatment and it may be carried out immediately or arranged for another day. At all other times emergency patients are seen on the Surgical Assessment Centre at NGH. It is the job of the on call doctors and the trauma co-ordinator to assess these patients and organise their care. When an operation is needed plans will be made for that to be done at a suitable time. Ii is possible that the patient may go home to return as a day patient to the SHC.
Patients with wrist fractures may also be referred to the Hand Centre for care in the outpatient clinic or an operation. As with hand injuries any surgery is usually arranged as a day case procedure.
Phone numbers:
For outpatient queries please call 0114 271 5684
For queries about patients attending for an operation please call 0114 305 2364.
