Cardiology
As part of our plans to move care closer to you the community service has been enhanced to now offer referrals to a consultant cardiologist and a heart failure nurse service, in parallel with the diagnostics service. This new enhanced service follows on from the success of our existing community-based cardiac diagnostic clinics which offer 12 lead ECG, 24 hour holter, 24 hour BP monitoring and echo cardiograms.
The service is offered at clinics in four locations around Bexley, making appointment times accessible and flexible to suit patients' needs.
After referral by your GP, you will be seen by a cardiologist who can where necessary refer patients to the parallel diagnostic clinic for an immediate test. They will also be available to review patients seen by the physiologist.
The cardiologists will decide whether further investigations or invasive procedures are needed, and we have successfully piloted CT scanning as a tool to confirm coronary heart disease in a single test - rather than patients attending multiple hospital appointments for various tests.
If the GP wishes to discuss patient management, they can contact the cardiologists directly.
The diagnostic, consultant and heart nursing clinics run concurrently at each of the established community clinics, offering patients an excellent one stop service. For more information about this service, please speak to your GP.
The venues and clinic times are as follows:
The Barnard Medical Practice
43 Granville Road
Sidcup, DA14 4TA
Mondays: 13:00 to 17:00 (HF nurse)
13.30 to 17:00 (consultant)
Bexley Medical Group
171 King Harolds Way
Bexleyheath, DA7 5RF
Wednesdays: 13:00 to 17:00 (HF nurse)
13:30 to 17:00 (consultant)
Upper Wickham Surgery
73 Upper Wickham Lane
Welling, DA6 3AF
Thursdays 13:00 to 17:00 (HF nurse)
13:30 to 17:00 (consultant)
Slade Green Medical Centre
156 Bridge Road
Slade Green, DA8 2HS
Fridays: 13:00 to 17:00 (HF nurse)
09:00 to 12:30 (consultant)
All referrals are handled via the Patient Management Centre (PMC) located at 221 Erith Road. The referral proforma has been updated and enhanced to support this .
The Phase 2 and 3 cardiac rehabilitation service is also now formally established and all practices have received information about this much improved service.
We will be working with the new providers to explore opportunities to enhance the service further and are already planning to develop a primary care education programme with them. We will also arrange to get your and your patients’ feedback on the new service over the coming months.
