Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 June 2021
It is not uncommon to hear a psychiatrist claim to be able to judge from general practitioners' letters which new referrals will attend and which will fail to turn up. However operational research has failed to define clear characteristics of patients who do not keep first appointments (Hillis and Alexander, 1990; Skuse, 1975; Zegleman, 1988). Also the standard of referral letters has been criticised in the past and shown more recently to omit key items of information (Pullen & Yellowlees, 1985). The aim of this study is to test the ability of psychiatrists of varying experience to predict non-attenders.
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