title: Patient satisfaction with conventional and nurse-led telephone follow-up after nasal septal surgery.
abstract: The need to bring down costs while maintaining a high standard of care has led to the expansion in the role of nurses in recent years. We present results of an audit of patient satisfaction with conventional and nurse-led telephone follow-up after nasal septal surgery. Our results indicate that patient satisfaction with nurse-led telephone follow-up is significantly higher than conventional follow-up (p=0.001, two-tailed). More patients in the conventional follow-up group felt that a follow-up appointment with an ENT doctor was essential compared with the patients in the nurse-led telephone follow-up group (p<0.001, two-tailed). We conclude that nurse-led telephone follow-up avoids unnecessary outpatient appointments, while identifying patients who require further care. It makes more appointment slots available for patients with pressing clinical problems and has the potential to reduce outpatient access times in the NHS.
authors.affiliation: Department of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, York Hospital, York, UK.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Uppal
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Nadig
authors.forename: M W
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: Mielcarek
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jose
authors.forename: A P
authors.initials: AP
authors.lastname: Coatesworth
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000465:Algorithms; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009300:Nasal Septum; D009668:Nose Diseases / Q000601:surgery*; D017060:Patient Satisfaction / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011182:Postoperative Care / Q000451:nursing* / Q000592:standards; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care / Q000379:methods; D013222:State Medicine / Q000458:organization & administration; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013689:Telephone; D006113:United Kingdom