GP views of nurse-led telephone referral for paediatric assessment.

Following the introduction of a new nurse-led telephone referral service to a dedicated paediatric emergency assessment unit (PEAU), a study was conducted to determine the views of general practitioners (GPs) who use the service. The PEAU operates between 10am and 10pm on weekdays and between 10am and 6pm at weekends. The unit has four beds and treatment and stabilization areas, plus associated services in a dedicated area of a regional child health unit. The design utilized a faxed questionnaire over a 1-month period to all consenting GPs using the PEAU with a postal questionnaire follow-up. Non-parametric Likert scores and qualitative data were used to determine levels of satisfaction with the service and the subsequent management of the referred children. Sixty-nine GPs referred 80 children to the PEAU via the service over a period of 1month. All consented to participate and were sent a faxed questionnaire, which generated 39 (57%) responses. A follow-up questionnaire sent to the 39 respondents achieve...