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Communication between GPs and psychiatrists: the long and short of it

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Andrew Blakey ,
Jessica Morgan  and
Ian Anderson
Andrew Blakey
Affiliation:
Withington Hospital, Manchester
Jessica Morgan
Affiliation:
Stepping Hill Hospital, Stockport
Ian Anderson*
Affiliation:
Rawnsley Building, Manchester Royal Infirmary, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9WL
*
∗Correspondence
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Abstract

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Good communication between general practitioners (GPs) and psychiatrists is important. An audit of new patient referral letters from GPs and the first assessment letter in reply from psychiatrists found that GP letters were short (mean 106 words) with limited information which increased with letter length. Psychiatrist's letters were longer (mean 849 words), of a high quality but with a negative relationship between length and information score. Use of the ‘preferred’ format derived from previous research was associated with shorter letters of higher quality. Communication between GPs and psychiatrists might be improved if GPs wrote more and psychiatrists wrote less.

Type
Original Papers
Information
Psychiatric Bulletin , Volume 21 , Issue 10 , October 1997 , pp. 622 - 624
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 © 1997 The Royal College of Psychiatrists

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