How this fits in

Many studies of safety netting to date have relied on retrospective data collected in clinician and patient interviews, questionnaires, or review of medical records. Prior research has reported that GPs provide safety netting advice ‘intuitively’ in some circumstances, but it is not known exactly how and to what extent safety netting advice occurs in routine adult consultations. This is the first observational study to investigate when and how GPs give safety netting advice in routine consultations in the UK, and to identify factors associated with frequency of safety netting advice. This study confirms findings from prior qualitative research that safety netting advice is often not specific and not documented in the medical notes.