News Release

One in five patients denied urgent access to sexual health clinics

Peer-Reviewed Publication

BMJ Specialty Journals

Access to genitourinary medicine clinics in the United Kingdom 2001;7:12-14

One in five patients with acute symptoms of a sexually transmitted infection is unlikely to be seen at a genitourinary medicine (GUM) clinic within the recommended 48 hours, shows research in Sexually Transmitted Infections.

Over one million patients were seen at GUM clinics in 1999-----more than twice the number at the start of the decade.

The lead clinician in each of the 258 UK GUM clinics was sent a questionnaire asking how quickly they thought patients with one of two symptom scenarios would be seen. The symptoms indicated acute, transmissible, and severe viral or bacterial infection. Healthcare staff posing as patients with the same set of symptoms also contacted clinics by phone, asking to be seen as quickly as possible.

Almost 80 per cent of the doctors contacted responded. And almost all them said that patients with such symptoms would be seen within 24 hours, and that there were protocols in place for this to happen.

But the telephone survey showed that 22 per cent of patients could not be accommodated within 48 hours: 49 of them had to wait longer than a week. Patients for clinics in the North West of England, the West Midlands, and Wales had the longest waits. Almost all of these patients had had the urgency of their need assessed only by a receptionist, who, the authors, suggest, are not adequately trained to carry this out.

Telephone contacts numbered 311. But 600 attempts had been made, and the authors suggest that this reflects the difficulties patients face trying to arrange an appointment. The authors conclude that the study is probably an underestimate of the problem because the 'patients' were experienced healthcare staff who insisted on being seen and who could talk readily about their symptoms.

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Contact:

Dr Elizabeth Foley or Dr Raj Patel, Department of Genitourinary Medicine, Southampton University, Hampshire. efoley@doctors.org.uk


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