The objective of this study was to assess the standard of advice given by telephone by accident and emergency (A&E) departments following patients' enquiries. In order to do this patient enquiries were simulated and a telephone questionnaire was carried out. The study was carried out in 18 major and 16 minor A&E departments in Wales. Results achieved were that overall, correct telephone advice ...

Abstract Aim To give shielding Registrars opportunities to innovate and lead service development through telephone triage of Surgical Assessment Unit (SAU) referrals from General Practitioners Nurse Practitioners. Prior the COVID pandemic, were taken by Coordinators. Increasing call volumes put pressure on department disrupted clinical duties. Furthermore, referrers often expressed difficulties...

Objective The aim of the present study was to describe the Ambulance Victoria (AV) secondary telephone triage service, called the Referral Service (RS), for low-priority patients calling triple zero. This service provides alternatives to ambulance dispatch, such as doctor or nurse home visits. Methods A descriptive epidemiological review of all the cases managed between 2009 and 2012 was conduc...

Kidsnet was established in 1997 at the Children's Hospital at Westmead as a paediatric telephone triage service. The demand for Kidsnet increased from 18 327 in 1997/98 to 22 844 in 2001/02, with an average of 1669 callers per month. Most callers were able to proceed to seeking care at a more appropriate time and were satisfied with the service provided. The service is highly valued and the adv...

NHS 111 is a telephone-based advice service that employs nonclinical call-handling staff to triage calls using computerised clinical decision support software. The safety of the service is contested, particularly for children and younger people, and there have been concerns that its introduction has increased emergency department utilisation. We examined predictors of emergency department atten...

INTRODUCTION Tasmania is Australia's smallest state measuring approximately 68,000 km2 and separated (by approximately 240 km of ocean) from the mainland of Australia, at the south-east corner of the continent. The total resident population of Tasmania is approximately 500,000 people with the greatest population density in the capital city, Hobart. Adult dental care is subsidised for socioecono...

PURPOSE Our objective was to assess and categorize harm occurring to patients who called their physicians' office after-hours but did not have their call forwarded to the physician because they stated that their call was not an emergency. METHODS We collected data on 4949 calls handled by our answering service for 1 year in a family medicine residency office in Denver, CO. Of the 2835 after-h...