Suspected Renal and Ureteric Stones

New Suspected Renal and Ureteric Stones Clinical Referral Guideline

Following a meeting in December 2017 with representation from Urology and Radiology consultants from all Acute Trusts in the Peninsula and the Devon Local Medical Committee, agreement has been reached on a Suspected Renal Stones Clinical Referral Guideline (CRG).

Andrew Dickinson, a urology consultant from Derriford and a national lead on renal stones was present at this meeting and played a key role in creating this CRG.

The new CRG is available here:

At least one in 5 referrals to urology is for suspected renal stones and numbers of such referrals are increasing.

With the correct imaging, many of these patients are found not to have stones and can be referred elsewhere or managed in primary care

Pre choice triage of all referrals by a Devon Urology consultant is already in place across Devon.

To ensure your secondary care colleagues can manage suspected renal stone referrals as efficiently as possible, we ask you to familiarise yourself with this CRG and to consult it before making any such referral.

This will also optimise the pathway for your patient.

NEW NICE guidelines on the management of suspected renal stones (which Mr Dickinson has co-created) are shortly due to be released and these will reflect the Devon CRG.

One of the key NICE recommendations is that low dose non contrast CTKUB is used as a first line investigation for suspected renal stones (except in women under 40 years)

Your local radiology service is aware that GPs will be requesting CTKUB for suspected renal stones and have agreed to this

Dr Rob Turner

Published: 06 March 2018