title: General practitioners' referrals to specialist outpatient clinics. II. Locations of specialist outpatient clinics to which general practitioners refer patients.
abstract: Although linkage by computer of hospital administration systems across all clinics in a health district is becoming a practical possibility, complete records of general practitioners' referrals to outpatient clinics will be difficult to achieve. Data from a large study of general practitioners' referrals to such clinics were used to calculate the proportion of referrals that crossed district boundaries, the proportion that were made to the private sector; and the number of locations that each practice referred patients to. Of the 17,601 referrals from practices in Oxford Regional Health Authority, 13,857 (78.7%) were made to NHS outpatient clinics within practices' own districts, 1524 (8.7%) to clinics in other districts in the same region, 420 (2.4%) to NHS clinics in other regions, and 1800 (10.2%) to the private sector; but these proportions varied considerably among the practices. The mean number of different NHS hospitals or clinics that each practice referred patients to was 15.8 (range 4-42).
authors.affiliation: Unit of Clinical Epidemiology, University of Oxford, Oxford Regional Health Authority.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Coulter
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Noone
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Goldacre
mesh_terms: D002391:Catchment Area, Health; D004739:England; D005194:Family Practice; D006801:Humans; D010044:Outpatient Clinics, Hospital / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012017:Referral and Consultation / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012111:Residence Characteristics