Centre for Policy on Ageing



Quality of referrals to old age psychiatry following introduction of the single assessment process
Author(s)	Kathleen Ferriter, Partha Gangopadhyay, Ramin Nilforooshan
Journal title	Psychiatric Bulletin, vol 30, no 12, December 2006
Pages	pp 452-453
Source	http://pb.rcpsych.org
Keywords	Psychiatric treatment ; Referrals ; General practitioners ; Needs [elderly] ; Evaluation ; London.
Annotation	The authors sought to identify changes in the quality of information in referrals to an old age psychiatry service before and after the introduction of the single assessment process (SAP). Referrals were compared in terms of length, legibility, information and clinical utility. This research identified 20 consecutive new referrals from primary care to the service in north west London between April 2003 and March 2004. The results revealed that compared with letters before the introduction of SAP, referrals made on the new forms took longer to read, had more illegible sections, contained less information and were judged to be less clinically useful. It is concluded that the introduction of SAP has impaired clinical communication between general practitioners and psychiatrists, and might be prejudicial to patient care. (KJ/RH).
Accession Number	CPA-070116205 A
Classmark	LP: L5R: QT6: IK: 4C: 82L
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...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.