| dc.contributor.author | Hunt, Helen | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2020-07-29T09:29:15Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2020-07-29T09:29:15Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2020-07 | |
| dc.identifier.citation | George Edwards, Rachel Brettell, Chris Bird, Helen Hunt, Dan Lasserson & Gail Hayward Paediatric contacts with the UK out-of-hours primary care service and contact outcomes: a regional service evaluation. BMC Fam Pract 21, 144 (2020). | en |
| dc.identifier.issn | 1471-2296 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://oxfordhealth-nhs.archive.knowledgearc.net/handle/123456789/579 | |
| dc.description | Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. | en |
| dc.description.abstract | Background
Demand on hospital emergency departments for paediatric problems is increasing. However, the volume and nature of paediatric health demands placed on other parts of the urgent care system have not been explored. This understanding is an important first step in developing and improving out-of-hospital care. We aimed to describe the volume, nature, and outcomes of paediatric contacts with out-of-hours general practice (OOH GP). We performed a retrospective service evaluation using data from 12 months of paediatric patient contacts with the Oxfordshire OOH GP service.
Methods
A database of contacts with the Oxfordshire OOH GP service was created for a 12 month period from December 2014 to November 2015. Descriptive statistics were calculated using SPSS Version 25.
Results
27,455 contacts were made by 18,987 individuals during a 12 month period. The majority of these were for children aged under 5. Over 70% of contacts were at the weekend. The peak contact period was between 18:30 and 21:30. Over 40% of contacts resulted in advice only (no onward referral, requirement for GP follow up, or prescription). 19.7% of contacts resulted in an antibiotic prescription, most commonly those linked with ear, chest, and throat infections.
Discussion
Paediatric contacts with the Oxfordshire OOH GP service were predominantly in younger age groups and in the evening, with 19.7% resulting in an antibiotic prescription. Almost half of the contacts had no follow up or prescription, suggesting non-prescribing health care professionals could be involved in providing care in OOH GP. Further research should consider how children and their parents can be best supported to optimise OOH consulting. | en |
| dc.description.sponsorship | Supported by the NIHR Community Healthcare MedTech and In Vitro Diagnostics Co-operative | en |
| dc.language.iso | en | en |
| dc.subject | Out-of-Hours Care (OOH) | en |
| dc.subject | Primary Care | en |
| dc.subject | Children and Adolescents | en |
| dc.title | Paediatric contacts with the UK out-of-hours primary care service and contact outcomes: a regional service evaluation | en |
| dc.type | Article | en |
