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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Do patients really want copies of their GP letters?
— a questionnaire survey of older adults and their carers | | Author(s) | Jenny Dale, George Tadros, Susan Adams |
| Journal title | Psychiatric Bulletin, vol 28, no 6, June 2004 |
| Pages | pp 199-200 |
| Source | http://pb.rcpsych.org |
| Keywords | General practitioners ; Communication ; Patients ; Informal care ; Attitude ; Social surveys ; Birmingham. |
| Annotation | The NHS Plan stated that all correspondence between clinicians would be copied to patients by April 2004. The authors wanted to find out whether this practice reflected the true desires of their patients. A questionnaire survey was performed with older patients and their carers attending the out-patient department at the Queen Elizabeth Psychiatric Hospital, Birmingham over a 10-week period in 2002. 88 participants were recruited, 50 patients and 38 carers. The majority of patients and carers wanted a letter about their care, but most preferred a separate, simple letter rather than a copy of the letter sent to their general practitioner (GP). Although this study supports the existing evidence that patients would like written information about their care, it indicates that certain patient groups might not want this in the form of copies of medical correspondence. Further research into patient and carer preference is needed before this policy is implemented. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-040712204 A |
| Classmark | QT6: U: LF: P6: DP: 3F: 87E |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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