Please be aware that when we contact patients ahead of their appointment, we will now enquire about symptoms of COVID-19. If patients have symptoms suggestive of COVID-19, we will ask them to defer their appointment, and will offer them a new one once they have fully recovered.
Clinician's Brochure
A brief guide to PET and the services offered by the PET Imaging Centre at St Thomas' is now available. This brochure is targeted at referring clinicians and can either be downloaded directly from this site or a copy can be requested by contacting the department.
Click here to download the brochure.
Referrals Procedure
Referrals must be made in writing, either on a PET Centre referral form (below, or available from the Centre) or by referral letter. The form or letter then needs to be emailed to the PET Centre at gst-tr.gsttpetcentrereferrals@nhs.net. Please note that all referrals should include the patient's full name, date of birth, address and telephone number and, if an NHS referral, please include the GP details. Private patient referrals should also indicate the payment method. The clinical reason for the scan request, relevant past medical history including surgical intervention, previous treatment and results of imaging examinations are also required.
The administrative office for the Centre is also based at St Thomas' so please direct all referrals, enquiries and requests for reports to the St Thomas' office.
Patient appointments will be scheduled at the first available time, usually within 2 weeks for routine referrals or earlier if clinical need dictates. Appointments are generally confirmed in writing, along with an illustrated brochure describing the procedure. Scan visits take between 1-3 hours depending on the procedure and careful consideration is being given to patient comfort throughout using our new patient areas to full effect. The radiation dose received is very small due to the short half-life of the tracers, and roughly equal to that of a barium meal. The only contra-indication is pregnancy.
For further information about the scanning procedure, please contact the Centre.
Click here to download the referral form.
If possible, please complete the form using Adobe Acrobat Reader, as this will allow you to add a digital signature. Click here to download instructions about how to set up a digital signature for the first time. Once you have filled in all sections, press the Submit button within the form. This attaches the form to an email to us, which you must send to submit your referral.
Please note that PET requests will only be accepted from UK based clinicians. The referrer is required to read and acknowledge the referrer's responsibilities under IR(ME)R 2017, as detailed on the referral form.
Referral Indications
We use the Royal College of Radiologists’ (RCR) Referral Guidelines “iRefer: Making the best use of Clinical Radiology", and the RCP recommendations for PET-CT referral, which can be found here.
Cancellation Procedure
It is the responsibility of the referrer to cancel a referral. You must cancel by contacting the department directly.
Email: gst-tr.gsttpetcentrereferrals@nhs.net
Telephone:020 7188 1493
Reporting
The images are electronically transferred to the referring trust the morning after the scan date and most reports are sent within 48 hours. Please note that it is not possible to provide hard copy of all of the data generated. In cases where hard copy is supplied, it is simply a representative sample of images to illustrate the report.
Referring clinicians are welcome to come to the Centre to review the images on the computer workstation if required.
Urgent results can usually be telephoned or faxed within 24 hours on request.
Further Information
For further information please contact us.
