The ASPH Accident and Emergency department (ED) has seen an increase in patients who present with surgical problems that are not hyper acute, but some of these patients are unwell and cannot wait for an outpatient appointment.

This group of patients are at risk of having long waits in ED to be seen by a general surgical team. Any treatment that they receive may not be in a timely manner or they may be seen by a different team to the one they are known to, if they have been recently discharged.

Surgical ‘hot clinics’allow general surgery patients to be seen promptly, for a variety of reasons including post discharge follow up, drain review or ED referral. This results in reduced re-attendance at ED, reduced OP waiting times and an overall better patient experience.