I have a fracture/knee ligament/ankle sprain where do I go?

When you sustain an injury it can be frightening and confusing to know where the best place to go for diagnosis and treatment is. Prior to the opening of Access Ortho your options were as follows;

A visit to your GP, this may be a convenient way to get excellent medical advice and treatment. With many injuries the GP will refer you to a specialist for expert care of your injury. Many specialists are difficult to get an appointment with at short notice. GP’s or the patient has to spend time calling around to see who can see you urgently. This is frustrating and can make the process of accessing care difficult.

The GP may also chose to send you to the emergency department or you may present directly to the emergency department. Again you will receive excellent care and it is extremely convenient as they are open 24 hours a day. For high level trauma or if you have co-existing injuries the emergency department is where you need to be.

The complaints we hear about people’s visits to the emergency department is the expense, the long wait times and that after patients leave the department they are still often left needing to find a specialist to manage their follow up care or waiting for a call with a public fracture clinic appointment .

Access Ortho has been opened to provide an alternative. Every day we have appointments available for urgent injuries so you can be seen immediately. You will be seen by an expert orthopaedic team and you can have all your non-surgical treatment in the one place. Of course if our medical staff determine that you need a referral to a highly specialised surgeon they can make a direct referral to a colleague in this field. A surgeon to surgeon referral will ensure you are seen urgently by the doctor you are going to. You can come directly to the clinic which will save you seeing multiple people prior to getting an orthopaedic opinion or you can come via your GP.

You can see Access Ortho as your first point of contact after an injury or you can attend the clinic for follow up care after you have visited the emergency department. At all times call the clinic and talk to our trained staff if you are uncertain where you should go following an injury.

Our goal is to make your treatment path as simple as possible. We will advise you on where we feel you should go for treatment and if we feel you are best seen somewhere other than our clinic we will be able to give you options to remove the confusion.