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Surgical Emergency Care

Checked: 16-12-2024 by Vicky Ryan Next Review: 15-12-2025

Adult Surgical Ambulatory Emergency Care

Please consider HOT Clinics or Rapid Access Clinics as an alternative to admission if this is appropriate.

For referral to adult surgical emergency services and other ambulatory emergency care in surgical specialities (patients aged 16 years and over), please contact your local hospital using one of the following numbers:

BRI (UHBW) - 0117 3427771
Southmead Hospital (NBT) - see NBT GI Surgery On Call Pathway for details including examples of patients who are appropriate for admission via SAU or assessment via SDAU
Weston Hospital (UHBW) - via Switch 01934 636363

Please be aware that these services are only for patients who need emergency assessment and are not booked clinics. Patients who do not need emergency treatment or surgery will not be accepted or will be referred back to their GP for onwards management using usual pathways.

The telephone call will be taken by an experienced nurse. GPs will be asked to provide clinical details and a full set of observations ( NEWS2 score ). The nurse will then either:

Arrange a direct admission.
Arrange an emergency assessment in the appropriate service.
Discuss the referral with on call surgical registrar and return with advice.

These emergency services should not be used in the following circumstances:

Follow up of patients with long standing conditions.
Referral for operations that are subject to Criteria Based Access policies.
Non - emergency treatment.
Expedition of planned treatment within any elective surgical or medical services.

ENT emergency care

Please see ENT HOT clinic page for advice on urgent care for ENT including advice on contacting ENT on call to discuss admission.

Paediatric Surgical Admissions

For acute paediatric surgical admissions (aged under 16) please see the Children's Urgent Care page.

Adult Urology

For adult patients (aged 16 and over) who may need urology admission then see the Urology urgent care and admissions page.

Adult Gynae

For adult patients (aged 16 and over) contact:

St Michaels via UHB switchboard - bleep gynae on call registrar to discuss admission or arrange assessment in the emergency gynae clinic (please do not ask patients to just turn up to the gynae ward without an appointment).
North Bristol via NBT switchboard (see emergency gynaecology clinic - NBT)

Early Pregnancy Clinics are also available at NBT and UHBW

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.