The Trust operates on a speciality-based ward plus dedicated specialty outlier wards. At the William Harvey Hospital all gastroenterology/hepatology patients should be cared for in one of those identified wards – Cambridge M2 is the main Gastroenterology/Hepatology ward with 19 beds. There are an additional 15 patients on the named outlier wards – Kings A2 and Kings B.
Our inpatients are cared for 24/7 by two gastroenterology consultants – covered on a rota basis. These consultants in-reach into the Emergency floor to review Gastroenterology/Hepatology patients referred in from the emergency team via Careflow – an electronic software clinical referral tool. There is also a 24/7 GI bleed rota. There are also links into the consultant on-call team at our Tertiary Centre – for our post liver transplant patients, patients with acute liver failure , gastrointestinal bleeding with portal hypertension not amenable or not responding to endoscopic therapy requiring TIPS.
All rotas are regularly shared with all key staff – including clinical teams, site and bed management team, senior managers and local operational/administrative staff.
The Hepatology lead, is kept informed of patients being admitted at the William Harvey Hospital with advanced Liver Disease to allow specialist input. There is also the opportunity for our patients to be reviewed in Thursday outpatient clinic should the need arise. The patients who require referral to tertiary centre are filtered locally through the specialist Liver clinic offered by Dr Jayshri Shah on Thursday morning at WHH.
