BMJ : British medical journal
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To develop a reliable, valid measure of patient satisfaction with out of hours care suitable for large scale service evaluation. ⋯ A reliable, valid measure of patient satisfaction has been developed, suitable for large scale evaluation of out of hours care.
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To evaluate an out of hours cooperative of general practitioners compared with a deputising service. ⋯ The cooperative in this study dealt with patient contacts very differently from the way the deputising service dealt with contacts, fewer patients being visited and fewer receiving prescriptions. The data presented enable other out of hours services to compare their own performance using a standard data collection and analysis program.