General practitioner and hospital letters.

Communication by letter was assessed between hospital consultants and general practitioners for outpatients and inpatients referred to the Ards Hospital during the month of January 1993. The information was assessed to be poor in several sections of 104 outpatient referral letters, and of 89 inpatient referral letters despite a high use of the standard referral letter form. Consultant physicians' or senior house officers' letters to general practitioners achieved higher scores in 72 outpatient letters, and 152 inpatient discharge summaries. The use of headings was approved by 80% of general practitioners and probably accounted for the highest scores for the headed discharge summaries. Further support and education in the use of headed letters is to be encouraged.