SENDING A COPY OF THE LETTER TO THE GENERAL-PRACTITIONER ALSO TO THE PARENTS IN A CHILD-DEVELOPMENT CENTER - DOES IT WORK

Following concerns that a considerable extra workload would be involve d in sending a copy of the GP outpatient letter to parents following a medical consultation, 100 consecutive letters from the CDC were analy sed to see if they could be sent to parents. Changes would have been n ecessary in 11, of which 6 would need an extra letter to the GP convey ing additional specific information. Letters were generally intelligib le, but it was recommended that they could be written in a more simple way for parents. Following these recommendations, copies of letters t o the GP were sent to parents and the practice reviewed 2 years later. GP letters from 100 consecutive patients who had just visited the Cen tre were analysed and found to have been sent in 94. Of the remaining six, five were not sent because they contained information specific to the GP. It was felt that this could be rectified fairly easily. An an onymous questionnaire, sent to those receiving a copy of the letter, i ndicated that it had been very well received. it was felt that this po licy was most helpful to the parents and justified a small additional workload.