Secondary Service Communications to GPs-a Regional Audit

AIMS: The purpose of the audit was to assess the standard of communication to GPs from secondary mental health services and to ascertain whether the information included in letters to GPs was in accordance with the recommendations of RCPsych and PRSB. The audit cycle was completed by re auditing to identify how the recommendations from the first audit has improved the quality of communication to GPs. METHODS: The audit was conducted on three psychiatric units, in three sites across Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board and clinic letters were studied to identify whether the information was as per recommendations from: RCPsych and PRSB. The first audit used 121 letters in total from 3 sites, with the data being collected using audit proforma over a 2 week period from 04/04/22. The re audit looked at 69 letters with data collection using audit proforma over one week period from 19/12/22. RESULTS: Majority of letters sent to GP were lacking key information like details of Care coordinators ,medical comorbidities ,non psychiatric diagnosis, and actions for GP with this data missing in 91.7%, 61.22 %,79.59% and 71.43% respectively. Fill rates for other information like patients' details was 100% , psychiatric diagnosis was 83.47%, psychiatric medications , follow-up plan were 80.17%. The results of the re-audit most letters contained Psychiatric Diagnosis (97.1%, previous 83.5%), Psychiatric Medication (91.4%)previous 80.17%), and Follow Up Plan(98.6%, previous 80.2%). Many letters did not include information regarding Medical Comorbidity (28.6% vs 31.4% ), Non-Psychiatric Medication (65.7% vs 34.7%), Details of Care Co-ordinator (54.3% vs 8.3% ) and Action for GP (27.1%, vs 44.6%). CONCLUSION: The recommendations from first audit were to create local guidelines and templates with recommended headings for clinical letters, provide formal teaching for junior doctors and to re audit to see if the implemented changes has led to an improvement. The re-audit showed improvement since the introduction of the template in majority of headings in GP letters with decline in fill rate for 2 headings and these changes varied among three sites. Barriers identified affecting the overall outcome of the re audit were :template not being used, lack of training to juniors, and psychiatrist workload. In conclusion , we aim to re-distribute the template and increase awareness with informal teaching sessions, provide information on template during induction for doctors and organize training sessions on three sites.