Outpatient clinics

South Bristol NHS Community Hospital will have at least 40 clinics seeing around 600 patients a week. More than 100 investigations will be carried out daily and staff will beam images directly to the Bristol Royal Infirmary for specialist advice. Highly specialised investigations and tests will still be carried out at Bristol Royal Infirmary and other city centre hospitals, but many people referred to the community hospital will be able to have their test and get their results locally.

Patients will be able to have appointments with GPs, GPs with a special interest in certain conditions, nurses and therapists and hospital consultants. These staff will have specialist skills and training and will be able to see and investigate people with a variety of health problems. These changes will free-up highly specialised consultants for the most complicated cases and help to ensure that waiting times for everybody continue to fall.

The clinics available at South Bristol NHS Community Hospital will include those in a number of specialities, for example:

• general surgery and urology - general operations and specialist treatment of urinary and male reproductive organs
• orthopaedics - disease and injury of the bones
• cardiology - diseases of the heart
• dermatology - diseases of the skin
• gynaecology - treatment and care of female reproductive health
• general medicine and care of the elderly
• ophthalmology - assessment for cataract surgery and minor eye operations e.g. eye-lid surgery.