Boost for men's mental health with new-look specialist service

THE APC’S Urology Network has played a key role in the successful launch of a new supra-regional urological service.

Guy’s and St Thomas’ and King’s have teamed with Imperial to centralise a penile prosthesis service to patients living across South London, Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Essex and beyond.

The clinical and operational teams have been working collaboratively for many months to create a smoother journey for patients.

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, patients requiring this treatment have waited a significantly long time for treatment due to the benign and lower clinical urgency of the procedure.

Together, the organisations have now created an andrological surgical hub at Guy’s Hospital in the standalone 24-hour facility, Nuffield House.

Here, once a month visiting surgeons from King’s and Imperial bring their patients for surgery, discuss cases at the regional multi-disciplinary team meeting, and undertake clinics.

Since launching the service, we have centralised surgery for 18 patients across the network.

None of this would have been possible without the administration teams who, after some weeks of finessing the processes, have established a robust system for moving information about patients between the organisations - something that we all know can be challenging with different electronic health records.