The ED calls: left-sided pain and a CT report

The referral

ED consultant, 16:20: 'Fifty-eight-year-old woman, three days of left lower quadrant pain, febrile at 38.1, CT shows sigmoid diverticulitis with a small pericolic phlegmon, no free air. Radiology wrote query abscess. Can surgery take her, and does she need an operation?'

58-year-old woman, hypertension, a milder episode of left-sided pain two years ago labelled 'a bowel infection', no operations.