Patients' experiences of receiving telephone advice from a GP co-operative

Abstract

There appears to be a need for patients to be better informed about the service they can expect to receive from GP co-operatives. Recent developments such as NHS Direct may have an influence on the telephone consultation rate to GP co-operatives.

Exploring users' experiences of accessing out-of-hours primary medical care services

“…These findings support those of previous qualitative studies in this area, which also found that the decision to call the out-of-hours service is complex19 20 and that home visits and swift access to medical care after initial contact are highly valued 7 8 13 20. Similarly, the sorts of issues raised are in agreement with the domains identified by McKinley and colleagues’ qualitative work conducted a decade ago 21.…”

“…Some patients have reported difficulty getting to treatment centres,7 8 but many appreciate the opportunity of having a prompt face-to-face consultation out of hours 8. However, telephone consultations have been consistently associated with decreased satisfaction compared with home visiting9 – 12 with some service users expressing doubts about whether an accurate diagnosis is possible over the phone 7 13. Prior expectations are important, however, and can predict overall satisfaction with out-of-hours care independent of the service type or location of care14 – 16—for example, people who originally expected a home visit are more likely to be dissatisfied if given telephone advice 3 10 13…”

Follow-up After Telephone Consultations at Out-of-Hours Primary Care

“…Patient dissatisfaction might be related in part to the lack of knowledge about telephone triage. 25 In addition, we found that that experiences with a telephone nurse were less relevant to a follow-up contact when a patient had a subsequent consultation at a center; in the case of a home visit, experience with a telephone nurse did not predict a follow-up contact. In part this may be because patients with a face-to-face contact with a PCP have more severe health problems and a follow-up contact is necessary, regardless of the experience with the nurse.…”

The effectiveness of out-of-hours dental services: I. pain relief and oral health outcome

“…'Universal access' services -intended for both registered and unregistered patients -exist in some areas, and these may use either telephone-based or 'walk-in' access arrangements, and see patients in either hospital, NHS community dental service (CDS) or general dental surgery settings. 1 Despite this diversity in the types of out-of-hours dental care available, and a wealth of studies of different models of GP-provided out-of-hours medical care, [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] there are no comparative studies that assess the effectiveness of emergency dental care provided in different ways. This study was originally designed to compare the cost-effectiveness of 'universal-access' out-of-hours dental care arrangements with 'conventional' out-of-hours care (that is, arrangements where there are separate service arrangements for registered and unregistered patients).…”