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Home Service Laboratory Services Clinical Genetics Service How to make a referral to Clinical Genetics

How to make a referral to Clinical Genetics

Health professionals

Health professionals can make a referral to Clinical Genetics via ECR, or by sending a letter via post or e-mail, to the addresses below.

Key information to include in the referral:

  1. The details (name and D.O.B) of any related individuals who are already known to our service.
    • If the family have a pedigree number (e.g. PED01234) please include this.
  2. A way for us to contact YOU (the referrer) about the referral (ideally an e-mail address).
  3. Please check that the patient’s phone number is correct.
    • Up-to-date contact information for the patient is vital. We often contact the patient at the time of triage to gather further information.
  4. Particularly for cancer-related referrals, it would be helpful to ask the patient to complete a family history questionnaire and ask them to return it to us by e-mail or post.
Rapid referrals

In certain circumstances, patients may warrant an urgent referral to Clinical Genetics (for example a pregnant woman known to be at risk of having a pregnancy affected by a genetic disorder (see also Prenatal care and testing), or a patient who is palliative.)

In these circumstances, please e-mail your referral to genetic.medicine@belfasttrust.hscni.net or contact the clinical genetics consultant or genetic counsellor on call (028 9504 8022 or via Belfast Trust switchboard).

For palliative patients, it is advisable to send DNA for storage at the time of the referral. Click here for the Test request form.

Non-healthcare professionals are not permitted to request genetic testing.

Patient self-referral

In select circumstances, patients can make a self-referral to Clinical Genetics using the form below, such as when a family member has already been seen by Clinical Genetics and advised that relatives may benefit from an appointment. Please note, a self-referral form, which does not link to an existing patient/ pedigree, will be rejected before triage.

Click here to download the external referral form. 

Who to contact for general queries:
Clinical: genetic.medicine@belfasttrust.hscni.net / 028 9504 8022
Laboratory: GeneticsLabs@belfasttrust.hscni.net / 028 9504 7353

Other useful documents

These are documents that the Clinical Genetics team might request that you complete and return via post or e-mail.

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