Immunology

Immunology services are hosted at Bristol NHS Foundation Trust (North Bristol site). There is no out of hours immunology service.

The Department of Immunology provides a range of tests for the investigation of patients with suspected or confirmed auto-immune disease, immune deficiency and allergic conditions, with access to clinical advice on appropriate investigation and interpretation of test results.

Technical staff are available to answer any questions relating to test repertoire:
Full Test Repertoire

Where specific tests are not available locally, samples are referred to other UKAS accredited centres:
Guidance on appropriate testing

Requesting via Millennium (Trust users) and ICE (GP users) is recommended.

For Cryoglobulin assessment – the laboratory MUST be contacted (01225 824712) to arrange collection of pre-warmed blood tubes in a warm sand flask from the Pathology Laboratory (Level 1, B38), Mon - Fri, 9am - 12noon (analysis cannot take place outside these times).

Urgent requests

The clinically urgent Immunology tests are:

Anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies (ANCA)
Glomerular basement membrane antibodies (anti-GBM)

The process for highlighting urgent ANCA or anti-GBM tests is as follows:

Requestor to phone the RUH Specimen Reception on ext 4700
Specimen Reception staff will take details of the request, including requestor contact information and confirmation of when the sample is expected
Samples will be packaged and sent to NBT for processing
Results will be communicated back to the requestor

Only samples marked as urgent and phoned as such will be processed urgently.

Please note that there is no funded out-of-hours service for ANCA or anti-GBM testing. The above applies to core hour requests.

Contacts

Dr Sarah Johnston (Consultant Immunologist)

Dr Johnson can be contacted on the below numbers:

At the RUH (Wednesdays only):
01225 826075
At Southmead Hospital, Bristol (all other times):
0117 414 8396 (secretary)

NBT Immunology laboratory

Contact numbers:

0117 414 8387
0117 414 8366

NBT Enquiries by email

Immunology Add-ons: ImmunologyAdd-ons@nbt.nhs.uk
Immunology & Immunogenetics: Immunology@nbt.nhs.uk

Referrals

There is one Bristol NHS Foundation Trust outreach immunology clinic / month at the RUH, but no other funded on-site clinical immunology service.

For clinical immunology and allergy referrals that cannot be submitted via the eRS, please contact the immunology secretarial team via ImmunologyAllergyAdminSecretaries@nbt.nhs.uk

All requests for Immunology or Allergy Advice and Guidance should be submitted via the e-referral service, using the correct pathway – Immunology or Allergy.

Registrar advice can be obtained via AllergyandImmunology@nbt.nhs.uk, the inbox is manned daily, or by contacting Southmead switchboard on 0117 950 5050 and asking for the Immunology registrar via bleep.