PRACTICALITY OF RECORDING PATIENT ETHNICITY IN GENERAL-PRACTICE - DESCRIPTIVE INTERVENTION STUDY AND ATTITUDE SURVEY

Objective-To assess the feasibility of recording patient ethnicity in primary care using the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys class ification. Design-A descriptive intervention study and attitude survey in random samples of adults and primary care staff in randomly select ed practices. Setting-Eight practices in Lincolnshire and seven in Lei cester. Subjects and methods-When patients were asked their ethnicity by general practitioners, nurses, or receptionists data were collected for 863 of a possible 880 patients. Of 750 patients sent a questionna ire about their attitudes towards the collection of such data 489 resp onded. Ninety live primary care staff completed a similar questionnair e. Main outcome measures-Time taken to record a patient's ethnicity; a ttitudes of patients and staff towards such recording, including who s hould ask, who can respond for others, and whether data can be shared with secondary care. Results-Recording, the data took less than a minu te for three quarters of patients, but even this would need an average of a week of receptionist time per general practitioner. 72% of patie nts and 57% of staff agreed that ethnic data could be shared with seco ndary care, and 73% of patients and 60% of staff felt that the data sh ould probably be collected in general practice. Conclusions-Ethnicity recording in general practice is feasible and acceptable. Nevertheless , the role of ethnic data in assessing health need in primary care, an adequate recording system, and evidence that recording offers benefit s greater than the costs need to be established.