Overview
The aim of Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust's Virtual Fracture Clinic is to get YOU (the patient) to the right specialist from the outset.
Following your injury, an Orthopedic Surgeon will look at your notes and X-rays and decide which clinic would be best for you to come to and when. We will then let you know the date and time of any appointments needed. This may include one of the following:
- Seeing an Orthopaedic Surgeon
- Seeing a Physiotherapist
- Discharge back to your GP with a letter and a phone call check-up
Virtual fracture clinics at the Trust will allow many patients to manage their broken bones safely and effectively at home while cutting clinic waiting times for those that do have to return to hospital.
This is the patient journey:
- Attendance in emergency department or care centre
- Review by orthopaedic team in virtual fracture clinic
- Booked into speciality clinic
- Referred to physiotherapy
- Discharge following phone discussion
Following attendance at the Emergency Department, Minor Injuries Unit or an acute referral to orthopaedics, your case will be triaged in our Virtual Fracture Clinic by an Orthopaedic Consultant.
As the clinic is virtual, you do not need to attend this review. Instead, once the review has taken place and if we do need to see you, we will contact you by telephone or by post with an appropriate appointment time.
Your Conditions and Treatment
Diagnosis
The Virtual Fracture Clinic (VFC) will give you a diagnosis. This is often clear on your X-rays or from your notes. Sometimes it is less clear, but we will phone you and ask you a few questions if we need to.
Further Investigations
Sometimes the Orthopaedic Consultant will want further investigations before we see you in the clinic, such as a scan. We can try to arrange these scans from the VFC without the need for an unnecessary clinic appointment.
Triage
The main benefit of the VFC is that we can triage you to the correct surgeon from the start. We can also bring you back to clinic in the correct timescale, preventing unnecessary appointments. You can read more about the Virtual Fracture Clinic principle to help you understand our approach.
