Monkeypox guidance (August 2022)
If a clinician suspects monkeypox, they need to follow the monkeypox pathway to ensure the most appropriate further assessment of their patient. Patients who are clinically well, have not travelled to central or west Africa, have no respiratory symptoms and who are gay, bisexual or men who have sex with men should be signposted to book at their local sexual health clinic. All other suspected cases should be discussed with the local infectious disease team.
To help with the initial management of cases, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has produced a useful algorithm.
Please also see the Contact risk assessment form and the Access to vaccination for NHS staff document in Downloads. To better understand the risk assessment, please see the relevant matrix on the GOV.UK website.
For advice and guidance during this period, the main NCL provider trusts are accepting calls from GPs:
UCLH: Oncall virologist available via switchboard
WH: Oncall microbiologist available via switchboard
NMUH: Oncall microbiology SpR available via switchboard (bleep 225)
RFH: Oncall ID SpR available via switchboard.
See the Hospital Bypass Numbers page for trust switchboard numbers.
UCLH infectious disease services
The Clinical Infectious Diseases service for UCLH is led by the Hospital for Tropical Diseases, which is dedicated to the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of tropical diseases and travel-related infections.
It serves long-term and short-term travellers, immigrants and refugee populations. UCLH also provides a Paediatric Infections and Tropical Diseases clinic for children and young people with unusual, complicated or recurrent infections.
For information regarding NCL's antimicrobial prescribing (as per NICE guidelines), please see BNF's Summary of antimicrobial prescribing guidance: managing common infections.
