LOCATION - Level 8, (D.C.), Tayside University Hospital N.H.S. Trust, Ninewells Hospital and Medical School, DUNDEE, DD1 9SY.

On entering Ninewells Hospital turn left before the Main Reception Desk, pass through the double glass doors, immediately turn right and take the staircase up one flight, through the single door to the Diabetes Centre. On entering the Centre, enquire at the ‘reception office’.

CONSULTANT PHYSICIAN in CHARGE       Professor Roland T. Jung

CLINICAL SPECIALIST                                    Dr. David R. Taig

SECRETARY/ADMINISTRATOR                   Mrs. Dorothy J. Bell

PURPOSE - This is a N.H.S. computer system set-up over twenty years ago to maintain the long-term Care in the Community for Thyroid Patients resident in Tayside and North Fife.

• Patients may be registered with SAFUR either by their General Practitioner or by Hospitals.  When a registration is received the details are entered into the database and a computer printout sent to the appropriate General Practitioner for filing in his/her patient’s notes.
• The system is used to notify every patient on the Register at some predetermined time interval of the necessity of visiting their General Practitioner for clinical assessment and thyroid blood tests. The system also notifies the General Practitioner, on a monthly basis, of those patients on his/her List who are due to be assessed. The General Practitioner then completes a questionnaire and sends the patient’s blood sample to the Hospital Laboratory. The results are then sent with the questionnaire (completed) to the Thyroid Office.
• The results are then entered into the computer and evaluated by the Specialist concerned in the monitoring of thyroid disease in this group of patients. In patients with abnormal results the Specialist either arranges with the patient’s General Practitioner to alter the medication or recalls the patient to the Endocrine Clinic. If there is a need to adjust therapy by the patient’s General Practitioner then automatically the patient is notified of this and asked to arrange to see their General Practitioner for this to be done. How often the patient is recalled is based on the individual requirements of each patient’s thyroid condition and so offers an efficient, effective and convenient service for the patient.
• The Register is audited on a continual basis with a major annual audit and preserves patient confidentiality. All information on patients is kept confidential only accessible to the patient’s General Practitioner and key staff in the Central Registry. 

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