title: Immediate psychiatric discharge letters by fax.
abstract: Much psychiatric care is provided outside the hospital setting. It is important for general practitioners (GPs) to have available information of good quality, provided promptly, after patients' discharges from in-patient psychiatric care to enable them to provide a high standard of follow-up care. In order to assess the value of hand-written Immediate Discharge Letters sent by fax we undertook a postal questionnaire survey of GPs, and examined a proportion of the clinical notes relating to 160 patients who between January and March 1998 had been discharged from in-patient care in the psychiatry admission wards at Crichton Royal Hospital, Dumfries. We found that structured letters, hand-written on a patient's discharge from in-patient status were generally valued by GPs as was their transmission by fax. Though certain deficiencies were confirmed in their completion, they are of value pending the arrival of a more definitive final discharge summary. We conclude that the continued use of such immediate discharge letters in psychiatry and their continued transmission by fax is justified.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Crichton Royal Hospital, Dumfries.
authors.forename: S J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Carey
authors.forename: D J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Hall
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005194:Family Practice; D006801:Humans; D010351:Patient Discharge; D010865:Pilot Projects; D011567:Psychiatric Department, Hospital; D012606:Scotland; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D016636:Telefacsimile; D013997:Time Factors