Communication

85% of practices had risks associated with communication issues.

Common issues:

• No regular practice meetings.
• No primary care meetings.
• Information received from secondary care not always legible.

Case

A practice did not have a standard messaging system; varying methods were in use. Some staff used “Post-It”® notes to pass messages.

Risk advice

To negate the danger of messages/patient information being inadvertently lost, the use of “Post-It”® notes and pieces of paper should be discouraged. Use a message book and add dates, times and signatures.