This new service is helping Doncaster patients avoid unnecessary trips to hospital

Doctors across the borough are being given direct and quick access to advice from consultants through a service provided by Consultant Connect. This often means that patients avoid unnecessary trips to hospital, the NHS saves money and hospital consultants spend time seeing patients they need to see.

Doctor Manjushree Pande, GP at The Tickhill and Colliery Practice said: “Over the last 12 months, a patient from our practice attended the emergency department due to foot pain. The patient had an x-ray which confirmed that a bone wasn’t broken and was discharged from the emergency department.

“A short time later, the patient returned to the practice with the same issue. The x-ray report identified the possibility of a foreign body in the foot and rather than sending the patient back to the emergency department, Consultant Connect was used to speak directly with a specialist.

“The Consultant was able to review the images and quickly organised a repeat x-ray and follow up appointment for the patient. Without Consultant Connect, the patient would have had to go back to the emergency department and would have had to wait to be seen.”

Since the service was launched, consultants at Doncaster Royal Infirmary have taken over 3,000 calls from GPs, and 54 per cent of these have resulted in a patient referral to hospital being avoided. Instead, care has been provided for the patient in the local community.