A SWINDON GP has exposed flaws in communication between hospitals and doctors surgeries after 98 per cent of outpatient letters arrived at his surgery late.

The delays could have affected up to 39,200 patients ranging from diabetics to those being treated for cancer. One letter took almost a year to travel from Great Western Hospital to Taw Hill Medical Practice in Aiken Road, North Swindon.

Dr Peter Crouch has analysed around 40,000 letters dating back to April 2008 to see how many arrived within the contractually agreed 48 hours of a patient’s last outpatient appointment.

Just two per cent arrived within two days, six per cent within three days and one letter took 344 days to arrive.

With the average delay between 11 and 16 days, Dr Crouch says that many of his consultations are wasted as patients cannot be seen without their hospital test results.

He said: “There are two types of letters from hospital. A letter when you get discharged which is a discharge letter and one when you are being treated as an outpatient.

“An outpatient letter is sent to your GP and often contains the diagnosis made by the consultant or a recommended course of treatment.

“We see patients who say ‘I saw doctor X in outpatients last month and he prescribed something, I don’t know what it is called but it’ll be in the letter’ – if we have not received the letter we then have to reschedule the appointment.”

Dr Crouch said: “I am sure that the trust never intended this to happen and I know that doctors and nursing staff do their letters almost within moments of seeing the patients. With some departments we get the letter the same day because they fax it straight over. Most other letters are sent by registered courier.

“So the problem seems to be administrative or secretarial. I don’t want to deride secretaries as they're working flat out to do what they're doing, these are people trying really hard but at the end of the day if you take how long it takes to send a letter from GWH outpatients to the practice hospital management should be looking at the process and seeing where the problems are.”

A Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust spokesman said: “Providing GPs with correspondence relating to their patients in a timely manner is important so that they are kept fully appraised of the care and treatment their patients may have received during their time in hospital.

“The results of the audit provide a useful insight into the way the GWH is corresponding with GPs in one local practice. We are working with NHS Swindon to use the results to see how processes can be improved and discussions are already underway. In the meantime, we will also be meeting a partner from the medical practice concerned to discuss the issues raised in their analysis in more detail.”

Val Vaughan, chair of Swindon Local Involvement Network steering group, said "The evidence produced by Dr Crouch is worrying but the LINk is pleased to hear that GWH is already talking with NHS Swindon about ways to improve.”