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NHS jargon

I was trying to compile a list (and hopefully their meaning) of medical jargons that are used day to day in the NHS. Some of those words might not be really weird to people in the system but for me they were all new.

TTO and Discharge summary
TTO means To-Take-Out and it refers to medications that are dispensed from the hospital with the patient when s/he is discharged home. Obviously, this is accompanied by the discharge summary

MFFD
Medically fit for discharge. This means the patient doesn't require any acute medical input or don't need to stay as an inpatient from the medical point of view. That still doesn't mean the patient can go home, he/she might need physiotherapy or rehab or care to be put in place or restarted ...etc but no medical management

OT/PT
occupational therapy/physiotherapy. When that is requested for a patient, the OT/PT team, will come and assess the patient's needs and put that in place or at least start the process for that to be put in place

CT TAP/CT CAP
CT thorax/abdo/pelvis
CT chest/abdomen/pelvis
sometimes there is an N before which means neck

Social admission
Coming from Egypt, where the concept of care homes or social care offered by anyone other than family is some form of insult, I was completely ignorant of "Social admissions".
Again means patient doesn't require any medical input but requires care or support or unable to manage or cope at home, so he is admitted in the hospital until that is sorted out for him/her

DATIX/GREATIX
The incident report form is called the DATIX, just means of identifying problems and involving managers to try to find the best solutions for those issues.
GREATIX is a rewards system for pointing out the exceptional behavior of colleagues

 MEDICAL TAKE
It is basically the acute medicine on-call. Looking after the newly-referred patients from ED for the possible hospital admission. I have never heard that word before coming to the UK, I don't think I even understand what it means now or why medical take became synonymous with on-call

CLERKING
Again was a complete jargon to me.
means full history taking, examination, coming up with an impression and drawing a conclusion for the new patient

POST TAKE
reviewing the new patient, who was just "clerked" from the "medical take" with the consultant

AAFT/FRAILTY ASSESSMENTS

Board round
In the wards usually, the day is started with a ward round, where the nurses hand over the new patients with any concerns that might have taken place overnight. After the ward round, there is another board round, where the doctors hand over to the nurses, mentioning the investigations, management, plans, referrals and expected day of discharge

SALT
Stands for "speech and language therapists". We ask for "SALT" review for several reasons like a patient with problems of swallowing or concerns about aspirations

FLEXISEGI
Flexible sigmoidoscopy

MaxFax
Maxillofacial

DOCC/ITU/HDU
DOCC is Department of Critical Care, known as ITU/ICU
intensive therapy unit or intensive care unit
It took me a long time till I started getting this (DOCC) one and by that time they changed the name to ICU.....

RRT
Rapid Response Team
is a team of very senior and very experienced nurses. It is not present in all the trusts.
They are basically the first point of contact for the ward nurses when someone is NEWSing high or they have any concerns, they attend all crash calls/cardiac arrests

NEWS
it is not really NHS (to me) but since I mentioned it in up there so I am going to write
Stands for "National early warning score" there are NEWS1 and NEWS2
It is a scoring system using the vital signs of the patient

LEVEL 1 PATHWAY
This is not applied everywhere in the NHS but it is in my current trust
It is for critical patients who are still managed on the wards with remote review/input from the RRT/ICU teams

ANP
Advanced nurse practitioners, they are very experienced in their fields and provide the first point of contact and support for patients who require specialist input and appropriate levels of escalation

OPAT
Outpatient parenteral Antibiotics Therapy
In UK system, you can never administer Parenteral antibiotics outside of the clinical setting, mainly hospital/AECU
So if there is a patient that can be discharged from the hospital and can be sent home but still needs the parenteral antibiotics, then the OPAT offers this service of administering the antibiotics as an outpatient

AECU
Ambulatory Emergency Care Unit
Usually, patients are either treated in GP surgery or in the hospital, but then there was this cohort of patients who are not unwell enough to come to the Emergency department but in the same time unable/shouldn't wait for GP appointment and that is the role of the AECU (Check your local referral guidelines)

Mane
Latin for morning

BIBA
Brought in by ambulance

DOLS
Deprivation of liberty

TWOC
Trial without catheter
when a catheter is being removed and you wanna trial if the patient is going into retention or not

Blue lighted
means urgent hospital transfer

PU
Passed urine

BM
Boehringer Mannheim, it is one of the first companies that was involved in the kits for measuring blood sugar and has been used interchangeably for pinprick "Blood sugar"

No fixed abode (NFA) 
homeless

Code Victor
When security is requested, this might not be universal for NHS

COMPOS MENTIS
Latin used when the patient has the full mental capacity

this is just on the top of my head and after asking a couple of my colleagues, I will keep that under review

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