When any patient is discharged from hospital a F1 doctor hand-written summary sheet is sent to the GP.  This carbon copied sheet can sometimes be faint and difficult for the community team to read.  It is absolutely essential for continuity of patient care that there is good communication between a patient's hospital team and the community team.  Therefore it is a firm requirement that all of Mr Moore's RSCH patients additionally have a typed A4 discharge letter printed out by the F1 doctors on the day of a patient's discharge.

This letter should be no longer than one side of A4 and it should contain brief details under the following headings:

Hospital admission date

Hospital discharge date

Working diagnosis

Investigation results

Operations

Medication given during admission but stopped before discharge

Routine medication stopped with reason

Medication on discharge

Discharge arrangements and follow up

The F1 doctor's name with 'F1 house officer to Mr Etienne Moore, Consultant General Surgeon' should be clearly typed at the bottom of the page

Two copies of the summary should be printed out on hospital headed paper and both signed and dated by the F1 doctor.

One copy should be filed in the correspondence section of the hospital notes.

The other copy should be dropped in to Mr Moore's plastic post tray in the secretaries' office at the back of level 9A ward.  Mr Moore will then read the summary and ask his secretary to send on the summary to the GP if no amendments are required.

If there is any urgent information that a GP should know about their patient on discharge then the F1 doctor should also ring the GP practice to either talk directly to the GP or get a message to them with contact information if the GP wanted to ring back later for further details.

Thank you for working to provide the best patient hospital and community medical management that we can.