Letters
Emergency consultation clinics avert unnecessary admissions
EDITOR,--Joanna Coast and colleagues report that about a tenth of admissions to general hospital might be suitable for alternative forms of care.1 In the child health department in Southampton an emergency clinic runs from 1 pm until 3 pm on weekdays (the 1-3 clinic) to address this issue. It is staffed by middle grade paediatricians with consultant cover. Children with acute and subacute problems are booked in daily.
During a recent five month survey of the clinic's activity 456 children were seen. Their presenting complaints were, as would be expected, mainly acute gastrointestinal (121), respiratory (103), or infectious illnesses (86). Of the 451 children whose notes we retrieved, 86 were admitted to hospital. In the remaining group 181 were discharged without hospital follow up: investigations were arranged, with follow up in the 1-3 clinic, for 85; a management plan was started and follow up arranged for a consultant outpatient clinic
CiteULike 
Complore 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Digg 
Reddit 
StumbleUpon 
Technorati What's this?
Relevant Article
- Alternatives to hospital care: what are they and who should decide?
- Joanna Coast, Abby Inglis, and Stephen Frankel
BMJ 1996 312: 162-166.[Abstract] [Full Text]
This Article
- Full text
- Respond to this article
- Alert me when this article is cited
- Alert me when responses are posted
- Alert me when a correction is posted
Services
- Email this article to a friend
- Find similar articles in BMJ
- Add article to my folders
- Download to citation manager
- Request Permissions
Citing Articles
Google Scholar
PubMed
Related Content
-
Child health
- General practice / family medicine
- Relevant Article
- Find this article in its weekly table of contents
Bookmark with
What's new
Latest blogs
Find BMJ on:
Services
Tools
Online poll
Resources
Rapid responses for this article
There are no rapid responses for this article. Print issues
