I am like you Liz - I give a copy to the patient and they act as the
transporter of the letter. This has several advantages.
It is my routine practice so it supports the notion that I made the
referral and told the patient in the first place
The patient makes their own arrangements for attendance so they are more
likely to keep the appointment.
I dont arrange any appointments unless there is a specific reason -
urgency, patient unable etc so less work for me.
Specialist doesnt have any letter so doesnt have any legal
responsibility for the patient - I hate it when I get sent some result
for a patient I dont know that I now have a responsibility to follow.
Patient has ownershiop of the process - it is not happening outside
their control.
At present I have no formal system beyond the above for checking that
the patient has attended - if it is particularly urgent/important I
check on an ad hoc basis
It seems crazy to me in this day of self determination that we should be
obliged on the one hand to allow the patient to make their own choice,
and then on the other be resposible for them when they dont do what they
should. If there is manifest evidence that I have made a referral to a
competent person and the patient is competent to understand this then
this should be sufficient.
OTOH I would be happy to receive letters from specialists electronically :)
R
Elizabeth Dodd wrote:
On Thursday 07 December 2006 07:49, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
this
is unrealistic.
Yes, it's unrealistic. So, if a person accepting referrals wants to store them
electronically, they really need to arrange for all those who refer to them
to have HESA keys and send all referrals electronically.
And that's unrealistic. I type out a letter, patient reads over my shoulder
and picks up the errors as we go, I print it and give it to the patient. Now
a lot of these are "give this a couple of weeks for the rash to go, and if
not, see the other doc" types of referrals, and the other doc doesn't
actually want a copy of it unless that person is actually going to be making
an appointment.
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