We are the national clinical referral centre for patients with infectious and tropical diseases. We run a 24-hour consultant-led emergency service and provide advice on clinical management or see referrals at short notice. Our inpatient unit is based on ward T08 at UCH and our outpatients department in the Mortimer Market Centre. HTD provides both general and specialist clinics each week.
We also provide a daily emergency walk-in service for patients recently returned from the tropics and are unwell, with fever or bloody diarrhoea. In addition we offer a fee-paying travel clinic providing pre-travel advice for travellers with complex problems including medical conditions and for clients with corporate contracts and existing customers.
We see children either as inpatients with the UCLH paediatric team or in outpatients in our Friday family clinic based in the EGA wing at UCLH.
We provide a comprehensive diagnostic service for a wide range of infectious diseases. These include:
- Malaria
- Dengue and other haemorragic fevers
- Pyrexia of unknown origin
- Typhoid and other enteric infections (giardiasis, dysentery)
- Parasitic infections (hydatid, schistosomiaisis, larva migrans)
- CNS infections (meningitis, neurocysticercosis)
- Infectious skin diseases (leishmaniasis, leprosy, lyme disease)
- Respiratory infections (tuberculosis, legionellosis)
- General infectious diseases (pyelonephritis, pneumonia)
- Asymptomatic post-tropical screening
Annual figures 10/11:
1359 inpatients
185 daycases
7768 outpatients
2540 emergency walk-in patients
4,000+ specialist telephone calls
Waiting times
Emergency referral service: 24hr service
Urgent walk-in service: Daily Monday - Friday 9am-4pm at HTD Outpatients, out-of-hours from UCLH A&E department
Urgent outpatient clinics: median 1-2 weeks
Routine outpatient clinics: median 2-4 weeks
Our nurse specialists provide an outpatient post-tropical screening clinic as well as a Hansen's dressings clinic. In addition, we have a Hansen's hand therapy clinic run by our occupational therapist.
Many infectious diseases lead to rapid changes in a patient's condition and so we tend to offer early follow-up appointments after discharge, to check that patients are continuing to improve. A typed discharge summary and follow-up plan is given to each patient and sent to the GP within 24 hours.
We try to ensure patients see the same doctor that looked after them in hospital, though this is not always possible.