Trial reportThe British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners2016
Telephone triage systems in UK general practice: analysis of consultation duration during the index day in a pragmatic randomised controlled trial.
Trial report in The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 28 papers, 2 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
28 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Using telehealth consultations for healthcare provision to patients from non-Indigenous racial/ethnic minorities: a systematic review.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA · 2022Pooled it
- Nurses as substitutes for doctors in primary care.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2018Pooled it
- Benefit of a nurse-led telephone-based intervention prior to the first urogynecology outpatient visit: a randomized-controlled trial.International urogynecology journal · 2021Trial
- The Use of Triage in Primary Care in the UK: An Integrative Review and Narrative Synthesis.Journal of advanced nursing · 2026Review
- Nurse triage in primary care: concept analysis.BMC nursing · 2025Article
- Primary health care provider availability and accessibility: a comparison of responses from providers and their office staff, results from the Models and Access Atlas of Primary Care - Nova Scotia (MAAP-NS) population study.BMC health services research · 2025Article
- 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
- Identifying performance indicators to measure overall performance of telephone triage - a scoping review.Scandinavian journal of primary health care · 2024Article
- Telephone completion of patient self-reporting health history documents by registered nurses: a survey to evaluate its effectiveness and strategies for improvement.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2023Article
- Changes in consultation mode during different phases of the COVID-19 pandemic in Croatian family medicine: a cross-sectional study.BMJ open · 2023Article
- Workload and workflow implications associated with the use of electronic clinical decision support tools used by health professionals in general practice: a scoping review.BMC primary care · 2023Article
- Face-to-Face and Tele-Consults: A Study of the Effects on Diagnostic Activity and Patient Demand in Primary Healthcare.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Telemedicine and virtual respiratory care in the era of COVID-19.ERJ open research · 2022Review
- Unintended consequences of online consultations: a qualitative study in UK primary care.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2022Article
- COVID-19 and beyond: virtual consultations in primary care-reflecting on the evidence base for implementation and ensuring reach: commentary article.BMJ health & care informatics · 2021Article
- Impact of a telephone triage service for non-critical emergencies in Switzerland: A cross-sectional study.PloS one · 2021Article
- The Impact of Digital-First Consultations on Workload in General Practice: Modeling Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2020Article
- Experiences of GP trainees in undertaking telephone consultations: a mixed-methods study.BJGP open · 2020Article
- Registered nurses´ views on telephone nursing for patients with respiratory tract infections in primary healthcare - a qualitative interview study.BMC nursing · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
11 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundTelephone triage is an increasingly common means of handling requests for same-day appointments in general practice.
aimTo determine whether telephone triage (GP-led or nurse-led) reduces clinician-patient contact time on the day of the request (the index day), compared with usual care. DESIGN AND
settingA total of 42 practices in England recruited to the ESTEEM trial.
methodDuration of initial contact (following the appointment request) was measured for all ESTEEM trial patients consenting to case notes review, and that of a sample of subsequent face-to-face consultations, to produce composite estimates of overall clinician time during the index day.
resultsData were available from 16,711 initial clinician-patient contacts, plus 1290 GP, and 176 nurse face-to-face consultations. The mean (standard deviation) duration of initial contacts in each arm was: GP triage 4.0 (2.8) minutes; nurse triage 6.6 (3.8) minutes; and usual care 9.5 (5.0) minutes. Estimated overall contact duration (including subsequent contacts on the same day) was 10.3 minutes for GP triage, 14.8 minutes for nurse triage, and 9.6 minutes for usual care. In nurse triage, more than half the duration of clinician contact (7.7 minutes) was with a GP. This was less than the 9.0 minutes of GP time used in GP triage.
conclusionTelephone triage is not associated with a reduction in overall clinician contact time during the index day. Nurse-led triage is associated with a reduction in GP contact time but with an overall increase in clinician contact time. Individual practices may wish to interpret the findings in the context of the available skill mix of clinicians.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What 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.