Referral to emergency

If any of the following are present or suspected, please refer the patient to the emergency department (via ambulance if necessary) or seek emergent medical advice if in a remote region.

  • acute dyspnoea. If there are any other associated symptoms such as chest pain, fever, signs of respiratory distress, a chest x-ray is indicated with a clinical review with either a general practitioner or at the emergency department

Please contact the on-call registrar to discuss your concerns prior to referral.

For clinical advice, please telephone the relevant specialty service.

Southern Adelaide Local Health Network

Women's and Children's Health Network

Category 1 (appointment clinically indicated within 30 days)

  • nil

Category 2 (appointment clinically indicated within 90 days)

  • unexplained chronic dyspnoea not requiring acute presentation to emergency department — see Referral to Emergency 
  • dyspnoea associated with exercise not responding to a trial of anti-asthma treatment

Category 3 (appointment clinically indicated within 365 days)

  • nil 

Essential referral information

Completion required before first appointment to ensure patients are ready for care. Please indicate in the referral if the patient is unable to access mandatory tests or investigations as they incur a cost or are unavailable locally.

  • details and timeline of symptoms including variability and severity
  • relevant medical conditions
  • chest x-ray

Additional information to assist triage categorisation

  • relevant allied health/diagnostic/imaging reports, including location of company and accession number
  • consider cardiac conditions as part of the differential diagnosis, refer accordingly and consider electrocardiogram/chest x-ray/blood pressure
  • if able to access
    • lung function pre and post bronchodilator
    • pulse oximetry

Clinical management advice

If the dyspnoea is long standing (i.e. greater than 4 weeks duration) or associated with exercise induced cough or wheeze, please consider asthma.

Clinical resources

Consumer resources

Reason for request

  • to establish a diagnosis
  • for treatment or intervention
  • for advice and management
  • for specialist to take over management
  • for a specified test/investigation the General Practitioner cannot order
  • for other reason (e.g. rapidly accelerating disease progression)
  • transfer of care from another tertiary service
  • clinical judgement indicates a referral for specialist review is necessary.

Patient demographic details

  • full name, including aliases
  • date of birth
  • residential and postal address
  • telephone contact number/s – home, mobile and alternative
  • Medicare number, where eligible
  • name of the parent or caregiver, if appropriate
  • preferred language and interpreter requirements
  • identifies as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander

Clinical modifiers

  • impact on employment
  • impact on education
  • impact on home
  • impact on activities of daily living
  • impact on ability to care for others
  • impact on personal frailty or safety
  • identifies as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander

Other relevant information

  • Willingness to have surgery, where surgery is a likely intervention.
  • Choice to be treated as a public or private patient.
  • Compensable status, e.g. DVA, Work Cover, Motor Vehicle Insurance, etc.
  • Relevant social history, including identifying if you feel your patient is from a vulnerable population, under guardianship/out-of-home care arrangements and/or requires a third party to receive correspondence on their behalf.
  • Triage of a specialist outpatient referral is based on clinical decision making to allocate an appropriate urgency categorisation.
  • Where appropriate and where available, the referral may be streamed to an associated public allied health and/or nursing service. Access to some specific services may include initial assessment and management by associated public allied health and/or nursing, which may either facilitate or negate the need to see the public medical specialist.
  • A change in patient circumstance (such as condition deteriorating or pregnancy) may affect the urgency categorisation and should be communicated as soon as possible.
  • All new referrals will be triaged by a consultant and appointment times scheduled according to clinical urgency.

Adolescents transitioning from paediatric to adult specialist services require a formal handover from paediatric specialist clinician to adult specialist clinician as well as a formal referral from the referring specialist to ensure initial transfer of care is completed.

The General Practitioners role in this process is to provide support to patients as part of holistic care. All ongoing referrals to specialists can subsequently be provided by the General Practitioner once the transfer of care has occurred.