Information for patients
If you're suffering with a chronic cough and your General Practitioner has exhausted all options with regards to possible causes, then it may be appropriate for you to be referred to our specialist chronic cough service at the University Hospital of South Manchester.
We accept referrals throughout the year, but please bare in mind that our service is very busy. In order to be seen by one of our team of specialist, you will first need to be seen by a hospital doctor (chest or ear, nose and throat) in order to have basic assessment of your cough. Your GP can then refer you to our service with a letter detailing your medical history and previous investigations. If you have already seen another doctor in hospital with regards your cough, then your GP can refer you directly to us.
Information for General Practitioners
If you have a patient with a cough which has persisted for more than 8 weeks, is unresponsive to treatments such as over the counter cough medication, anti-biotics and codeine, and has normal respiratory investigations, then your patient may have a chronic cough condition. Patients with a chronic cough require specialist investigations in order to identify and prescribe alternative therapies.
We do not accept direct referrals to our service from General Practitioners. In order to refer your patient to us, please refer them to a secondary care physician (ideally chest but ENT and gastroenterology are other options depending on the patient’s symptoms). If they still have symptoms after being seen in secondary care (or if they have previously been seen with regards their cough, then you can refer to the specialist cough service. Please send us a detailed letter including your patient's previous medical history (including smoking history), current prescribed medications and details of previous respiratory and gastrointestinal investigations. Copies of results are extremely helpful.
During your patient's initial consultation, we will ask them to complete our proforma. It saves us a large amount of time if you can complete as much as possible of this proforma with your patients and send this with your referral letter.
