Clinicians should endeavour to recognize the early signs of serious disease and to direct the patient to the appropriate specialist for a second opinion, including results of any relevant investigations.
Patients who may benefit from specialist referral include those where there is:
• a possibly complex or serious diagnosis (e.g. cancer, pemphigus, HIV/AIDS Behçet disease, Crohn disease)
• a doubtful diagnosis
• extraoral involvement or possible systemic disease
• investigations required, but not possible, or appropriate to carry out, in primary care
• a situation where therapy may not be straightforward and may require complex agents
• a situation where drug use needs to be monitored with laboratory or other testing
• a patient who needs repeated access to an informed opinion, outside normal working hours.
Essential details of a referral letter include the following:
Only gold members can continue reading. Log In or Register to continue
