Your Fracture Clinic Appointment

The doctor will request your x-ray using the electronic hospital system and you may be given a slip of paper with your patient details to take to the x-ray receptionist, who is to the right of the fracture clinic receptionist. Our outpatient x-ray rooms adjoin the fracture clinic and uses the same waiting room.

Once you have been x-rayed you will be asked to take a seat in the waiting room until the doctor is free to see you. If you would like copies of your x-rays, you will need to ask the x-ray receptionist for a form to fill in. We can then provide a disk of your images for a small fee.

We do a range of treatments in the plaster room, including casting, removal of casts, wound care, application of orthotic devices (boots, braces etc), giving out crutches and more. Some patients will go into the plaster room before they see a doctor, some will be sent there after they have seen the doctor. Some treatments can take a long time and patients may go to the plaster room more than once on that day. We may for example need to take a patient’s cast off to remove sutures or clean and dress a wound before x-ray.

Following your consultation, your doctor may send you to see one of our physiotherapists. We aim to have a musculoskeletal physiotherapist allocated to each fracture clinic who will assess you and provide you with some initial exercises to get you started. This is not always possible, and if we do not have a physiotherapist in clinic, then we will take your contact details and refer you to the physio team who will get in touch to book an appointment at another time.

Hand Therapy treat injuries of the hand and wrist, and provide a weekday walk in service for fracture clinic patients. Once you have been seen by the fracture clinic team, you may be referred to hand therapy. This will be a paper form that you are given to take around to the physiotherapy department, which is located next to Costa Coffee by the main entrance.

Your doctor might refer you for further investigations such as a CT, MR or Ultrasound scan. You will be contacted by the relevant team to book your appointment for the scan as an outpatient. If your scan is clinically urgent, your doctor will discuss this with a consultant radiologist to try to find a slot for you, but otherwise you may have to wait a few weeks for your scan.

We will either book you a placeholder appointment as a follow up, or give you the contact details to book your own follow up once you have had the scan. Please be aware that we may reschedule your follow up appointment if your scan hasn’t been completed OR reported. We will do our best to contact you in good time if this is the case. If you feel that you still need to see a doctor despite not having had the scan or report because your symptoms have worsened, then please contact us and we will keep the appointment.