Communiactions Between General Practitioners and Hospital Doctors in the Canterbury Area Report of a Pilot Study

A study of the communications between the medical staff of the Kent and Canterbury Hospital and the general practitioners referring patients to this hospital was carried out by means of questionnaires addressed to the doctors concerned, and designed to elicit information about the channels of communication, the circumstances surrounding such communications and their timing in relation to significant events. The postal questionnaire approach resulted in a good response from consultants, a fair response from general practitioners and a disappointingly poor response from junior hospital doctors.