WHAT DOES THE GENERAL PRACTITIONER WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THE CANCER PATIENT ?

A review of the contents of 80 discharge letters about patients with cancer suggests that, although diagnosis and treatment were quite well covered, the letters gave the general practitioner very little information about what the patient or his relatives had been told. Where a social worker had written a report on the case no details were given in the letter. On an experimental basis an " immediate discharge letter", set out as a form and giving...