• Jenni Burt, Stephen Barclay, Nigel Marshall, Cathy Shipman, Amanda Stimson, and Jason Young.
• Department of Palliative Care and Policy, King's College London, Weston Education Centre, Cutcombe Road, London SE5 9RJ, UK.
• J Public Health (Oxf). 2004 Sep 1; 26 (3): 275-6.

BackgroundThe transfer of information between general practitioners (GPs) and their out-of-hours providers on vulnerable patient groups is essential to ensure continuity of care. This will be critical when, in 2006, NHS Direct will triage and route all out-of-hours calls. This study investigates the current use of information handover systems for palliative care patients within four out-of-hours co-operatives.MethodsPaper records of all 13,460 contacts during August 2002 were scrutinized. Using a standardized data extraction form we recorded details on all palliative or terminal contacts, and the existence of information handover.ResultsAcross the four co-operatives, 2.1 per cent of all calls were from palliative care patients; co-operatives held handover information for between one (1.2 per cent) and 13 (32.5 per cent) of these patients.ConclusionThe systems in place to alert these co-operatives to the needs of palliative care patients are currently under-utilized. As services move towards an integrated approach, scrutiny of information transfer systems and encouragement of GPs and district nurses to update information, may help to ensure better continuity of care

29 keywords...

hide…