Information for Patients - Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at Royal Brompton Hospital, London and National Heart and Lung Institute (Imperial College)

Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Trust, National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College, London

Information for Patients

The Occupational Lung Disease clinic at the Royal Brompton Hospital in London is one of the longest-established and largest of its kind in Europe. The clinic takes place every Monday afternoon, and has the backing of a large and well-equipped Lung Function Department. An additional clinic has started up at Harefield Hospital, Middlesex on the third Thursday of every month. Please contact us if you wish to be seen there instead.

If you are being referred to us with Asthma, you may find the Guide to the Occupational Lung Disease Clinic leaflet useful — it describes our clinic and what tests you can expect when you visit us for the first time.

Other leaflets you may find useful

Occupational Asthma — a leaflet for those who have just been diagnosed with occupational asthma.
Lung Function Tests — a leaflet describing the different lung function tests.
Latex Allergy — a leaflet describing latex allergy and how to deal with it.
Asbestos-related disease
Mesothelioma
Occupational Inhalation Testing — this leaflet explains about challenge testing, which recreates your workplace exposures in a hospital setting.

Referral to our clinic

Referrals to us are usually made by your Occupational Health doctor, nurse or advisor, your GP or another hospital doctor.

A first visit to the clinic may take up to 2 hours, so please allow plenty of time. This is because you may need to undergo several diagnostic tests, including a chest X-ray.

We prefer you not to take your inhaler treatment on the day of your first appointment (please bring it with you in case you need them after your tests), and to stop any anti-histamine treatment for 7 days ahead of your appointment if possible.

If you need any advice about this, please contact our Clinical Secretary on tel 020 7351 8341; fax 020 7351 8336. If you have any feedback or suggestions about how we can improve our service, please let us know.

Information for new patients attending our clinic

You have been referred to Professor Newman Taylor’s occupational lung disease clinic. As part of your assessment, you may have a number of investigations by our Clinical Nurse Specialist.

The appointment letter asks you to arrive 30 minutes before your appointment time. This is to allow for registration and a chest x-ray.
You should allow 2 hours for your appointment.
Click here to see the layout of Outpatients West, Royal Brompton Hospital, London, which is located in the Fulham Road part of the Hospital
Click here for a map of the Harefield Hospital, including the outpatients department.

Tests may include:

Basic lung function testing will be necessary. Please can you not take any bronchodilator (reliever/blue/salbutamol/Ventolin/Bricanyl) inhalers for 4 hours prior to your appointment, or any long-acting bronchodilators (e.g. symbicort, seretide, serevent, Oxis) for 12 hours before.
Skin prick (allergy) testing may be necessary, so could you not take any antihistamine medication for 48 hours (or, ideally, 7 days) before your appointment to ensure the tests are effective.

If you cannot attend this (or any further) appointment, please can you let us know on 0207 351 8341. If any tests such as lung function have also been arranged for you, you will need to contact that department separately or let us know when you call.

If you would like to be placed on a list to be contacted for an earlier slot in the event of a cancellation please contact us on 0207 351 8341.

Instructions for the self-measurement of peak-flow readings

Please download the instructions sheet, either as a PDF here, or a Word document here.

You can download a sheet to print out and write your peak-flow readings on, either as a PDF here, or a Word document here.