For clinicians

At Barts and The London Neurostimulator Service we are committed to keeping clinical colleagues informed about progress and changes to our service. Please click on the links below for more informtion:

Referrals fo vagus nerve stimulation therapy

Barts and The London Neurostimulator Service will accept referrals for consideration for VNS therapy.

Patients need to be referred by the consultant physician who looks after their epilepsy to our Specialist Epileptologist (Dr Charles Cockerell, Consultant Neurologist, Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel, London). An individual assessment will be undertaken to determine if a patient is a suitable candidate for this therapy. This may involve an MRI scan and EEG video telemetry. If the patient is considered to be a suitable candidate, they will be offered a place on the waiting list for the procedure.

Referrals for spinal cord stimulation and other chronic pain neurostimulation therapies

Referrals of patients with intractable radicular pain, neuropathic limb pain, facial pain, chronic ischaemic limb pain or chronic post-amputation pain for consideration of neurostimulator treatment should be made by the patient's clinician to the lead clinician, Dr John McAuley, Consultant Neurologist or specialist neurostimulator surgeon, Mr Habib Ellamushi, both based at The Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel, London. Patients are normally assessed for suitability during a single outpatient visit.

Funding

Neurostimulation services are very specialist and ultimately expensive options for treatment. If a patient is considered suitable on clinical grounds for a neurostimulator procedure, the referring clinician is informed and an application is made to the patient's primary care trust for funding.

It is important to manage patient expectations by explaining that this treatment may be unsuitable or unavailable to them.