Table 9.
Discussion with colleagues about patient
| Professional group | Prescribing status | Number and % of all patients seen for whom discussion occurred with colleague | Mean (SD) minutes in discussions with colleague per patient |
Discussion with same professional n, mean (SD) minutes |
Same colleague cost / discussionb (£, 2015) |
Discussion with medical professional n, mean (SD) minutes |
Medical colleague cost / discussionb (£, 2015) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PHYSIOTHERAPY | Independent prescriber | 19 (17.8%) | 10.61 (9.68) | 3, 19.5 (14.8) | £22.75 | 16, 9.5 (8.9) | £21.69 |
| Non prescriber | 1 (0.9%) | 0 (n/a) | 1, time missing | Not known | 0, n/a | 0 | |
| Significant difference | p < 0.0005a | n/a | |||||
| PODIATRY | Independent prescriber | 19 (14.8%) | 6.89 (3.20) | 11, 6.8 (3.6) | £7.93 | 8, 7.0 (2.8) | £15.98 |
| Non prescriber | 13 (10.5%) | 6.92 (6.14) | 12, 7.3 (6.3) | £8.52 | 1, 3.0 (0.0) | £6.85 | |
| Significant difference | p = 0.299~ | p = 0.493^ |
a Fishers Exact test; ~ Chi squared test; ^ Mann Whitney U test
bUnit costs of health and social care 2015 (Curtis and Burns 2015), pro rata based on £70/ h for same professional i.e. AfC band 8a, as in Ec2 above, and £137/ h for medical consultant