A urinary flow test and bladder ultrasound assess problems with your urinary tract and bladder. You may need one or both if you’re suffering with the following:

• Leaking urine
• Going to the bathroom more frequently than usual
• Experiencing pain when peeing
• Having a strong, sudden urge to urinate
• Struggling to completely empty your bladder

Depending on the issue, you may need to book a flow rate test or bladder ultrasound before your initial consultation with one of our Consultant Urologists. We’ll advise you at the time of booking.

Please note: if you have a catheter fitted, we won’t be able to offer you these tests and will book you in for an initial consultation only.

Please eat and drink as normal before your appointment as you’ll need to attend your appointment with a comfortably full bladder. Do not drink an excessive amount and please don’t pass urine until your test; we’ll carry it out as soon as possible so that you’re not waiting.

If you experience urinary frequency or urgency and have a long journey to our hospital or feel that you’re unable to hold your urine for a long time, we’d recommend you arrive early and have a drink in our Pavilion restaurant.

This test and scan are not painful, although the ultrasound gel might feel a little cold.

We’ll carry out the first bladder scan while your bladder is full. Before the procedure, a member of our clinical team will explain the scan in full to you. They’ll then ask you to lay down on a bed in a private room.

Your scan will be carried out by one of our expert Continence Care nurses, who will apply ultrasound gel to the lower and upper abdomen. They’ll move the ultrasound probe across your skin to measure how much urine is in your bladder. Please note: the ultrasound can only assess the volume of urine in your bladder, it cannot check any other organs.

If you’re also booked in for a urine flow test, we’ll ask you to empty your bladder into a special toilet or flowmeter, a two-part funnel with a container to collect the urine and a scale. It’s important to urinate as you normally do.

Your Continence Care nurse will then repeat the bladder scan to measure how much urine you have left in your bladder. Once your nurse has calculated the volume of urine in your bladder, they’ll wipe the ultrasound gel from your skin.

The urine flow rate test and bladder scan usually take 20 minutes if your bladder is full. However, you should allow about two hours for your visit to our hospital.

We'll be able to access the results immediately and your Consultant will explain the results.

To find out the costs of a urine flow rate test and bladder ultrasound, please visit the Urology section of our pricing page.