Varicose veins

At St Georges Vascular Unit, we provide patients with a ‘one-stop’ service for the assessment of varicose veins. Each new referral is assessed by a vascular surgeon, and a Duplex ultrasound scan is performed at the same visit.

A further consultation takes place with the result of the scan and a management plan discussed and instigated, on the same day. This has proved to be extremely popular with patients, preventing repeat visits with all of the inconvenience and delay that this entails.

We have introduced an outpatient based treatment service with endovenous and injection sclerotherapy which prevents the requirement for general anaesthetic and admission to hospital. Patients attend the clinic, undergo treatment for their varicose veins under local anaesthetic in a specially equipped ‘minor-ops’ room, and leave usually within 1 hour. At present we treat over 200 patients with varicose veins per year with a 96% day case rate.