Improving patient satisfaction: Introduction of a telephone results clinic in Neuro-Oncology follow-up

It has been shown in one UK centre that telephone clinics helped improve patient satisfaction and lessened the burden on overbooked outpatient services in the low grade glioma setting1. AIMS We set up a telephone clinic for Neuro-Oncology follow-up patients. We aimed to reduce the burden of patients attending outpatient clinics and improve the follow-up experience for patients who were stable on surveillance imaging. The telephone clinic was offered to selected Neuro-Oncology patients. Only patients stable on standard outpatient follow-up for 12 months and who understood that they may receive bad news over the telephone were eligible. If they were accepting of this and consented to telephone follow-up they were transferred to this clinic. After at least one telephone clinic appointment they were sent a questionnaire to assess their satisfaction. 34 patient satisfaction questionnaires were sent out to all attendees of the telephone clinic. 26 (76%) responses were received. The respondents were aged 24–74 years and were predominantly male (73%). 24 (92%) had a diagnosis of Glioma and the majority of these were high grade (6 low grade patients: 18 high grade patients). There was a consensus from all patients that the telephone clinic was beneficial to their patient experience. It was found to be a prompt way to deliver information and reduce stress levels, as well as eliminating associated travel time and costs. 100% of patients surveyed preferred telephone clinic appointments to a standard outpatient appointment. From our initial survey, telephone clinics appear to reduce burden on outpatient neuro-oncology services whilst maintaining high levels of patient satisfaction. REFERENCES 1.) Oberg I, Price S. Nurse-led telephone clinics improve patient satisfaction and enhance follow up for benign/low grade tumour patients. Neuro-Oncology 2017. Available: https://academic.oup.com/neuro-oncology/article-abstract/19/suppl_l/i10/3059769 [Accessed 01/02/2018].