About us

The Adult Burns Service at the Royal Adelaide Hospital (RAH) provides specialised acute, surgical, and reconstructive care to those who have received a burn injury by thermal, chemical, electrical, or radiation causes.

The 15-bed unit is the tertiary referral centre for burns patients over the age of 16. Its catchment area extends across South Australia, the Northern Territory, and western parts of New South Wales and Victoria.

The RAH Burns Unit is renowned for its innovation in burn care and is the only centre in Australia verified by the American Burns Association (ABA) and American College of Surgeons (ACS).

Services we offer

The RAH Burns Unit provides services for patients over the age of 16 for:

• Acute burn treatment
• Burns surgical intervention
• Burns reconstruction
• Scar management
• Rural and remote burn care via trained ‘link specialists’ and telemedicine consultations
• Community prevention
• Disaster management
• Education opportunities for metropolitan and rural/remote health care professions via ‘Burn Education Days’

Referring a patient

The referral criteria for tertiary burns unit assessment includes:

• Adult burns > 10%
• Full thickness burns of any size
• Burns of special areas – face, neck, hands, feet, developing breasts, genitalia, perineum
• Electrical burns
• Chemical burns
• Circumferential burns of neck, chest or limbs
• Burns at extremes of age e.g. children, the elderly
• Burns with concomitant medical illness e.g. diabetes, paraplegia
• Burns with concomitant trauma e.g. inhalation injury, fractures
• Burns with concomitant psychiatric illness
• Any other burn that the referring department is not confident to send home

To refer you patient, complete the referral form and email to us. To ensure timely triage, include all demographic and clinical details in the referral. For urgent referrals, also contact the Burns Referral registrar to discuss the case.

We accept referrals from General Practitioners, Emergency Departments, Other hospitals and Specialists.

Medical referral phone: 0435 051 631

Email: health.rahburnsreferrals@sa.gov.au

The RAH Burns Outpatient nurse-led clinic operates Monday to Friday (excluding public holidays) between 8:00am – 3:30pm.
The clinic is co-located with the Burns Unit on level 7, block G at the Royal Adelaide Hospital.
We recommend you advise patients to take analgesia 30mins before their scheduled appointment.

For general burn wound/dressing advice, contact the senior Burns Registered Nurse.

Burns Unit: (08) 7074 5076

Contact

Head of Unit – A/Professor Marcus Wagstaff

Ward 7G A

Adult Burns Service

Level 7, Block G

Royal Adelaide Hospital

1 Port Road, Adelaide SA 5000

Tel (08) 7074 5076

Fax (08) 7074 6223

Email: rah.burns@sa.gov.au

Forms

• RAH Burns Unit referral form (editable PDF 151 KB)
• RAH referral criteria for tertiary burns unit assessment (PDF 176KB)

For further information, contact rah.burns@sa.gov.au.