Advice & Guidance Services

Service Overview

Gastroenterology Advice and Guidance

Gastroenterology advice and guidance services are available at NBT and UHBW and  are able to provide advice regarding all types of luminal gastroenterology (ie. anything bowel related). See details in sections below.

Please do not send advice requests regarding hepatology to this gastroenterology A and G services - see link to separate service below.

Colorectal and Upper GI Surgery Advice and Guidance

Please see the Surgery Advice and Guidance page for details.

Hepatology Advice and guidance

Please see the  Hepatology A&G page for details

Community gastroenterology service (PRIME)

You may also like to consider the PRIME community gastroenterology service as alternative to secondary care referral. This service is run by experienced GPSIs and can see patients with a range of gastroenterology problems. Referral can be made via eRS. Exclusions do apply - see link for details.

Response times. The waiting time tool for BNSSG GP practices includes a section on A and G waiting times. You will need to download the document and follow the instructions to access the latest information (updated monthly). Please see the Hospital waiting times page.

UHBW Gastroenterology Advice & Guidance

Please see the relevant information below on how to make a Gastroenterology A&G request via e-Referral to UHBW.

UHBW - Gastro A&G Guidance Document  

Please process through e-Referral bypassing the Referral Service by selecting the following options:

• Gastroenterology Advice - University Hospitals Bristol - RA7

Priority - Routine
Specialty - GI & Liver
Clinic - Lower GI (medical) excl IBD OR Upper GI incl Dyspepsia

• Gastroenterology Medical - Weston Area Health Trust - RA3 - Service currently suspended.

• Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery Advice - University Hospitals Bristol - RA7

Please see the Surgery Advice and Guidance page for details.

Please see Surgery A&G for Upper and Lower GI Surgery A&G.

NBT Gastroenterology Advice & Guidance

Gastroenterology Advice and Guidance

Please see the relevant information below on how to make a Gastroenterology A&G request via e-Referral to NBT:

• Gastro A&G Guidance document - how to make an A and G referral
• NBT poster on indications for advice and guidance for gastroenterology and hepatology.

Please process through eRS bypassing the Referral Service.

Priority - Routine
Specialty - GI & Liver
Clinic - Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) OR Lower GI (medical) excl IBD

If primary care would like advice from a specialist team to enable them to manage a patient in the community please use the following contact details.

For patients already in the service

• Gastroenterology - gastroenterologyandhepatologysecretaries@nbt.nhs.uk Tel. 0117 414 6499 
• IBD - IBDNurses@nbt.nhs.uk or phone IBD Nurses on 0117 414 6354
• Liver - Katharine.caddick@nbt.nhs.uk (LIVER) or phone 0117 414 6466 or fiona.jones@nbt.nhs.uk (LIVER) or phone 0117 414 6468

• Endoscopy - Endoscopybooking@nbt.nhs.uk or phone 0117 414 5040 (09 – 17:00)

Email responses will be returned within 7 calendar days.

If a response has not been received within 7 calendar days please escalate this via Outpatients.Appointments@nbt.nhs.uk

Please see Surgery A&G for Upper and Lower GI Surgery A&G.

A&G Tips

To enable the consultants to give the best advice possible please consider the following points:

• Give a clear concise history and examination findings- avoid cutting and pasting long lists of consultation notes that are not relevant to the problem in hand.
• Include relevant results, investigations and recent correspondence if appropriate but avoid multiple attachments that can take time to download and make the triage process more cumbersome.
• Ask a clear clinical question and avoid ambiguity.
• Avoid requests for complex patients known to an individual consultant as they are unlikely to be the consultant giving the advice and may not have easy access to details of previous contacts with the patient. In these cases consider writing or emailing the relevant secretary directly.

The e-Referrals advice and guidance cannot be used for:

• Patients who require admission to hospital
• Ongoing management of a patient under a Gastroenterology or Hepatology Specialty in UHBW/NBT
• Asking for a second opinion
• Progressing/expediting an existing referral

Efforts are made to ensure the accuracy and agreement of these guidelines, including any content uploaded, referred to or linked to from the system. However, BNSSG ICB cannot guarantee this. This guidance does not override the individual responsibility of healthcare professionals to make decisions appropriate to the circumstances of the individual patient, in consultation with the patient and/or guardian or carer, in accordance with the mental capacity act, and informed by the summary of product characteristics of any drugs they are considering. Practitioners are required to perform their duties in accordance with the law and their regulators and nothing in this guidance should be interpreted in a way that would be inconsistent with compliance with those duties.

Information provided through Remedy is continually updated so please be aware any printed copies may quickly become out of date.