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Processing and assessing psychiatric referrals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Prakash Naik*
Affiliation:
Lyndon Resource Centre, Hobs Meadow, Solihull, West Midlands B92 8PW
Alan Lee
Affiliation:
University Hospital, Nottingham NG7 2UH
*
Correspondence
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Abstract

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Referrals from general practitioners to a sectorised mental health team were audited for time delays and quality over three months. A referrers' guide was then designed to reduce referral delays and improve their quality. This was sent to all GPs. Referrals were again audited over two three month periods. There was no significant difference between corresponding time delays in the three periods. Only one item, the presence or absence of past history, was significantly improved in the third period. These results and their implications are discussed.

Type
Audit
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1994

References

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Royal College of Psychiatrists (1989) Preliminary report on medial audit. Psychiatric Bulletin, 13, 577582.Google Scholar
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