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Neurology

Welcome to SVUH Department of Neurology

The Department of Neurology in St Vincent’s University Hospital has undergone substantial change in the last few years. In a bid to reduce waiting times, the Department has reconfigured the way it functions across the board.

The Department of Neurology was delighted to welcome two new Consultant Neurologists in September 2010. Dr. Christopher McGuigan and Dr. Sean O'Riordan, both established Consultants in Charing Cross Hospital in London, have great experience in the fields of Multiple Sclerosis and Movement Disorders respectively. They have already had an impact in their first few months and the Department now functions as the first group practice in neurology in Ireland. We are running 3 public clinics daily from September 2010. Thus, we have now expanded the neurology outpatient service to 19 outpatient clinics a week which include general neurology clinics and specialist clinics in MS, Parkinson’s, Migraine, and Dystonia. People referred to the service will be reviewed by one of the consultants/team in order to facilitate shorter waiting times, improve access and to speed up the referral process.

We also welcomed Dr. Conor Murphy who is running the first GP lead migraine clinic in Dublin with the support of the Migraine Association of Ireland and Menarini Ireland. It is going really well and feedback from our patients has been extremely positive.

Dr. Juliet Bressan runs a monthly dystonia clinic for musicians and this is kindly supported by Dystonia Ireland and will be sponsored by Allergan in 2011.

We are involved in a number of clinical research initiatives including the development of a web-based electronic referral system termed ‘Neurolink’. The latter won an Irish Times Innovation in Business award in 2010 and was commended by the Neurological Alliance of Ireland at its National Conference.  It has now been adapted by other services including the National Cancer Strategy. Click here to learn more.

The Department of Neurology has won HSE innovation awards in 2006, 2007 and 2008 (click on the year to learn more).

The Consultant Neurologists rotate every two months between the in-patient work and the out-patient work. The in-patient service has expanded to allow for designated beds on St. Vincent’s ward and we have also introduced a web based, internal referral service to expedite neurology service delivery to other teams in the hospital, particularly the Emergency Department (ED).

It is well-recognized that between 15 and 20% of all admissions through the ED have a neurological problem and, by seeing patients early, specialist neurological care can help minimise the time a person has to spend in hospital if they cannot be discharged directly from the ED to the OPD.

The Department has developed the only intranet referral system (to speed up our in patient consultation service especially for the Emergency Department where we see over 40% of our ‘in-house’ referrals) at St. Vincent’s University Hospital and published our findings in the European Journal of Neurology this year. The Department has also looked at a number of other clinical issues pertinent to out patient service delivery particularly the area of non-attendance rates (so-called DNA rates). A text message reminder system for patients was introduced and some of our findings are about to be published in the International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance.

We have worked in close collaboration with Catherine Slattery and her team in the IV Therapy Suite and have considerably improved access for people with MS for therapies such as Tysabri. We currently manage 74 people on Tysabri. There were up to 107 on the drug at SVUH at one point.

Main Contact Details

Departmental Enquiries

Paula Halpin
Tel: (01) 277 4179
Fax: (01) 277 3506

Location

Basement of Carew House ,Next to Breast Check.

Out-patient Enquiries

Ciara Gallagher
Tel: (01) 221 3830
Fax: (01) 221 3842

Location

Main (new) building, ground floor, left hand corner after coming through main entrance.

In-patient Enquiries

St Vincent's Ward
Tel: (01) 221 4569
Fax: (01) 221 4755

MS Research Enquiries

Dr. Siobhan Kelly

Tel: (01) 221 3674
Fax: (01) 277 3506

MS Clinical Enquiries

Marguerite Duggan & Lisa Buckley (MS Nurse Specialists)
Tel: (01) 221 4850
Fax: (01) 277 3506

Parkinson's Clinical Enquiries

Heather Kevelighan (Parkinson's Nurse Specialist)
Tel: (01) 209 4146- Please leave a message.
Fax: (01) 221 3842

Myasthenia Gravis Clinical Enquiries

Orla Kenny (Myasthenia Gravis Research Nurse)

Tel: (01) 2773596

Fax: (01) 2773506