Allergy specialist workshops and clinics

Our clinics run 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday. They take place in the children's allergy service at St Thomas' Hospital, unless stated otherwise.

Our specialties, clinics and workshops

Most children referred to the service will have their suspected allergy investigated, diagnosed and a management plan discussed at their outpatient appointment.

However, a small number will need more investigations or treatment, and will need to be admitted as a day case.

This will usually take place at:

Children’s Allergy Day Case Unit (CADU)
2nd Floor, D Block, South Wing
St Thomas’ Hospital
Download a map to the Children’s Allergy Day Case Unit (PDF 219KB).

Our day case unit is led by team of specialist allergy nurses.

The day case unit is where we perform food and drug challenges and anti-IgE therapy. The first year of immunotherapy treatment takes place in Crocodile Classroom, which is located just outside Snow Leopard ward (the receptionist will be able to show you where to go).

The majority of children with a suspected food allergy will have skin testing and blood testing at an outpatient appointment.

However, for a small number the results may not be conclusive. If this happens, they'll need to have an oral food challenge or supervised feed.

We offer the largest food challenge service in the country, performing oral food challenges and supervised feeds in our dedicated day case unit.

If your child needs a food challenge or supervised feed, your clinician will tell you how you can book it.

If you have any problems booking your child's food challenge or supervised feed please phone 020 7188 6390.

Find out more in our patient information leaflet Food challenges and supervised feeds - information for parents and carers (PDF 98KB).

We know children who are affected by one allergic condition, like a food allergy, are more likely to have another, likes asthma or eczema.

For most children these conditions can be managed at their routine allergy appointment. However, we're seeing an increasing number of children with complex, interacting allergic conditions and have set up a number of joint clinics with clinicians from different specialities, to better care for these children with more complex conditions.

We run regular clinics jointly with other services so that children with more complex conditions can see healthcare professionals with different specialities in one place.

Joint allergy and dermatology clinic:
Dr Susan Chan – consultant allergist
Dr Wedad Abdelrahman – consultant dermatologist
Joint allergy and gastroenterology clinic:
Dr Tom Marrs – consultant allergist
Dr Rakesh Vora – consultant gastroenterologist
Support is also provided by specialist dieticians

Joint allergy and respiratory clinic:
Dr Helen Brough or Dr Susan Chan – consultant allergist
Dr Meredith Robertson – consultant paediatrician

Joint allergy and ENT clinic:
Dr Kate Swan – consultant allergist
Dr Ian Lilly – consultant ENT surgeon

We run the largest comprehensive desensitisation service for children in the UK.

The service is run by the specialist nursing team.

Desensitisation (also known as specific immunotherapy) is a treatment for severe allergies that do not respond fully to medical treatment.

We offer immunotherapy for allergy to:

pollen (hayfever)
dust mites
animal dander
insect venom

We also offer the option of subcutaneous (injection) or sublingual (oral) treatment.

Any patient who is being considered for the treatment is seen in an immunotherapy assessment clinic where different treatment options and suitability for treatment is discussed.

Treatment is started on our day case ward under the supervision of our specialist nurses and in the case of sublingual immunotherapy is continued at home. We do not currently offer a desensitisation service for food allergies.

We also provide a desensitisation programme for children who have had anaphylaxis to wasp and bee stings. This is an intensive treatment programme, requiring regular visits to our day case ward.

This unique tertiary level service aims to accurately and safely investigate patients referred with suspected allergic reactions to medications.

The service offers expert clinical opinion supported by skin prick and intra-dermal testing and where necessary, drug provocation testing.

Most of the investigations of drug allergy take place on our day case unit.

We are closely supported by our children's dermatology colleagues for the combined investigation of drug allergies that are of a contact nature.

This service is for children who have had adverse reactions to vaccinations in the past or who are allergic to components of a vaccine, such as children with an egg allergy who need the seasonal influenza or yellow fever vaccine.

We're the only hospital in the UK which is a registered yellow fever vaccination centre. We accept referrals for children with an egg allergy who need the yellow fever vaccine.

We aim to see the child within 2 weeks of referral and are able to safely assess and where appropriate give the yellow fever vaccination to children with an egg allergy.

For more information about yellow fever vaccinations visit the National Travel Health Network and Centre website.

This is a unique tertiary level service that aims to accurately and safely diagnose and manage conditions of an allergic nature that are related to exercise and activity.

Examples include:

food-dependent exercise-induced anaphylaxis
exercise-induced anaphylaxis
exercise-induced asthma

It's led by consultant allergist Professor George Du Toit.

Professor Du Toit enjoys close collaboration with exercise physicians at the department of sport and exercise sciences, Northumbria University, where he is visiting professor.