Useful Information about your appointment/s

For information on getting to the hospital, please visit the following page: Coming Into Our Hospital  

Typical care pathway  

If your GP has any concerns, they will refer you to the Non-Specific Symptoms (NSS) Pathway here at the hospital for further testing.  

Before your first appointment, it would be helpful if you could consider any relevant information on the following beforehand: 

• Past Medical History - previous illnesses or operations. 

• Regular medications - a list of prescriptions is useful. 

• Family History - close relatives who may have had a diagnosis of cancer. 

There are some useful links available on the following page, to help you prepare for appointments: Preparing for your appointments 

For your initial appointment, you will receive a call from our NSS Pathway Navigator who will explain the service to you and the process from referral to diagnosis. During that initial call they will also schedule a telephone call with a member of the clinician team. This involves taking a full medical history and discussing your current symptoms and concerns. This call usually takes 20 – 40 minutes.   

You will be referred for further tests to determine a diagnosis, for information on the tests which may be involved, please visit ‘tests and investigations which may take place’ (LINK) 

The results from these tests will be reviewed at a Multi-Disciplinary Team (MDT) meeting, where a group of medical specialists will review the results to determine a specific diagnosis.  

It is intended that the pathway will lead to one of the following outcomes:  

• Referral on to a site-specific specialist cancer pathway 

• Referral to other speciality for onward management of a non-cancer diagnosis 

• Discharged back to the care of the GP with advice and reassurance (if required)