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OpenTrials
Completed

NCT Number: NCT00988000

Initial Specialist Telephone Consultation With New Patients in Secondary Care

Consultations with patients by hospital consultants are organised today in a manner which is barely dissimilar from that offered 30 or 40 years ago. Whilst some attempts to improve this process, such as Choose and Book, shorter waiting times and patients' receiving a copy of the correspondence sent to their general practitioner (GP) have improved the situation, there has been little radical change and little thought given to the patient experience.

The investigators wish to investigate whether patients' experience of attending respiratory outpatient clinics can be improved by a pre-clinic telephone call with a specialist thereby reducing the number of attendances at the hospital for appointments and investigations and improving overall patient satisfaction.

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Key information

Conditions

Respiratory Diseases Respiratory Tract Diseases

Age range

18 year and older

Sex eligibility

All sexes

Study type

Interventional

Phase

Not applicable

Primary location

Imperial College at Charing Cross campus

London, W6 8RF, United Kingdom

About this study

This study will investigate whether taking a new patient's history over the telephone permits better selection and arrangement of investigations prior to or synchronous with the first face to face consultation, with the potential to reduce the number of visits the patient has to make to the hospital.

Patients will be offered an initial telephone consultation by post and may opt-in or out of the study. Those having a telephone consultation would have this booked for a specific time and date and the patient would be sent an appropriate information leaflet regarding this. After the telephone consultation patients receive a summary of the consultation and details of any investigations and appointments booked by the research nurse. Patients who did not respond to the initial invitation letter within seven days or who declined to participate would be sent a routine appointment. All patients would asked to complete the MISS-21 questionnaire.

Who can participate

Healthy volunteers accepted: No

Only the study team can determine whether someone qualifies for participation.

Inclusion criteria

  • All new adult general respiratory referrals from primary care

Exclusion criteria

  • Follow-up patients

Treatment and study plan

telephone consultation

Other

alternative to face to face consultation for new referrals

No intervention

Other

no alternative to face to face consultation

Primary outcomes

  1. Patient Satisfaction of the Alternative Consultation

    Time frame: First clinic appointment (Month 0) and Follow-up appointment (6 months

    Patient Satisfaction assessed by MISS scale, Medical interview satisfaction score. The score 0-7, 0 means dissatisfaction, higher scores indicate higher satisfaction.

Secondary outcomes

  1. Number of Required Investigations

    Time frame: 0-6 months

    reduction in number of required investigations

Sponsors and collaborators

Lead sponsor

Imperial College London

Other

Collaborators

  • The Dunhill Medical Trust

Registry information

Official study title

Telephone Consultations for New Patients Being Referred to a Specialist Respiratory Outpatient Clinic

Important dates

Study start
2009
Primary completion
2010
Study completion
2010
First posted
Oct 1, 2009
Registry last updated
Oct 25, 2019

OpenTrials presents study information sourced from ClinicalTrials.gov. The official registry record should be consulted for the latest information.

View the official ClinicalTrials.gov record (opens in a new tab)

This listing is for discovery and informational purposes only. It is not medical advice, does not guarantee that a study is recruiting, and does not determine eligibility. Contact the study team and a qualified healthcare professional when considering participation.

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