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.

  • nil

For clinical advice, please telephone the relevant specialty service.

Northern Adelaide Local Health Network 

Southern Adelaide Local Health Network

  • Flinders Medical Centre (08) 8204 5511, after hours on-call service for patients of all ages until 11:00 pm

Women’s and Children’s Hospital Network


Inclusions

  • alopecia areata with failure to respond to conventional therapy
  • alopecia areata with associated significant psychosocial impact
  • unexplained hair loss for older than 6 months
  • tinea capitis
  • congenital hair disorders
  • short anagen syndrome
  • loose anagen syndrome

Exclusions

  • patients over 17.5 years of age, refer to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital hair clinic

Triage categories

Category 1 (appointment clinically indicated within 30 days)

  • rapid hair loss involving greater than 50% of scalp hair

Category 2 (appointment clinically indicated within 90 days)

  • moderate hair loss involving 20 to 50% of scalp hair

Category 3 (appointment clinically indicated within 365 days)

  • alopecia areata involving less than 20% of scalp hair, not responsive to conventional therapies

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.

  • duration and severity of alopecia areata
  • types of treatment used in the past and current treatments

Clinical management advice

  • consider counselling if significant psychosocial impact
  • hair loss can result from a number of systemic disorders, including thyroid disease and nutritional deficiency

First line treatment

Potent topical corticosteroids:

  • i.e. betamethasone dipropionate 0.05% (cream and/or ointment) use Monday to Friday to bald patches. Generally, two to four months is required until regrowth occurs.
  • betamethasone dipropionate 0.05% lotion can also be prescribed; however, it is not listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS).
  • mometasone furoate 0.1% lotion is easier to apply through hair and can be used as a PBS listed alternative and is also less potent than betamethasone dipropionate 0.05%.

Topical minoxidil 2%, apply x number of drops twice daily where x is age of child (i.e. a 2 year old receives two drops of minoxidil lotion twice daily) to areas of alopecia

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.