ArticleThe British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners2002
The effect of GP telephone triage on numbers seeking same-day appointments.
Article in The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners, 2002. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 37 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
37 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Telephone consultations for general practice: a systematic review.Systematic reviews · 2017Pooled it
- The effects of telephone consultation and triage on healthcare use and patient satisfaction: a systematic review.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2005Pooled it
- Systematic review of recent innovations in service provision to improve access to primary care.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2004Pooled it
- The acceptability to patients of PhysioDirect telephone assessment and advice services; a qualitative interview study.BMC health services research · 2016Trial
- Telephone triage systems in UK general practice: analysis of consultation duration during the index day in a pragmatic randomised controlled trial.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2016Trial
- Implementing telephone triage in general practice: a process evaluation of a cluster randomised controlled trial.BMC family practice · 2015Trial
- Trial
- Cost-effectiveness of telephone or surgery asthma reviews: economic analysis of a randomised controlled trial.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2005Trial
- The Use of Triage in Primary Care in the UK: An Integrative Review and Narrative Synthesis.Journal of advanced nursing · 2026Review
- Uses of Virtual Care in Primary Care: Scoping Review.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025Article
- Access systems in general practice: a systematic scoping review.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2024Article
- Telemedicine and virtual respiratory care in the era of COVID-19.ERJ open research · 2022Review
- Telephone Triage for Emergency Patients Reduces Unnecessary Ambulance Use: A Propensity Score Analysis With Population-Based Data in Osaka City, Japan.Frontiers in public health · 2022Observational
- The Impact of Digital-First Consultations on Workload in General Practice: Modeling Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2020Article
- Factors affecting medical file documentation during telephone triage at an emergency call centre: a cross-sectional study of out-of-hours home visits by general practitioners in France.BMC health services research · 2019Article
- Triaging of non-scheduled appointments in general dental practice: a clinical audit.British dental journal · 2019Article
- Telephone first consultations in primary care.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2017Article
- Article
- Telephone triage by GPs in out-of-hours primary care in Denmark: a prospective observational study of efficiency and relevance.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2016Observational
- How do patients respond when confronted with telephone access barriers to care?Health expectations : an international journal of public participation in health care and health policy · 2015Article
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Telephone consultations with general practitioners (GPs) have not been shown to be an effective way to reduce the demandfor face-to face appointments during the surgery hours. This study aims to determine if GP telephone triage can effectively reduce the demandforface-to -face consultations for patients seeking same-day appointments in general practice. We report an interrupted time series, twoyears before and one year after introduction of GP-led telephone triage. Demand for face-to face appointments with a GPwas reduced by 39% (95% CI = 29 to 51%, P < 0.001). more than 92% of the telephone calls lasted less thanfive minutes. The telephone bill increased by 26%. For a substantial proportion of patients seeking same-day appointments telephone consultations were an acceptable alternative service.
Indexed as
Identifiers
12014537PMC1314295What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.