What will happen during my consultation with Dr Ravi Assomull?
Wondering what to expect at your cardiology appointment? Dr Ravi Assomull outlines how consultations are designed to be thorough, efficient and convenient, with many essential tests arranged on the same day to help reach a diagnosis quickly.
Learn more about Your journey or book a consultation with Dr Assomull – no GP referral needed, appointments typically within one working day.
Transcript
When you come to see me, we start by getting to understand what your concerns are. This may be from information that's provided in your referral letter or what you tell us during your consultation. Where possible, we try and set some time aside for some simple investigations on the actual day where we meet.
Based on our discussion, we may arrange further investigations. We try to make this convenient for you by grouping them together in one day, ideally straight after each other. This is what we call a one-stop service.
It's helpful if you bring any previous letters. These may be from previous specialists you've seen, other cardiologists or from your GP. The key information we'd like to glean from this is whether you've had any tests done already.
And if you have, we can simply use that information without repeating those investigations. This allows us to reach our conclusions faster and hopefully reassure you sooner. You don't always need a referral letter to see me.
If you're a self-funding patient, this isn't necessary. However, if you're using a private medical insurance, some insurers will actually insist that you have a GP referral letter. Things have moved on, so a lot of insurance companies are now actually providing their own GP service to help with this.
