ABSTRACT
Three clinics were included in three specialties: rheumatology, ENT and gynaecology. The outreach clinics included in the study were selected to represent a wide geographical spread of regions in England. In each participating outreach clinic and matched outpatients clinic, all attending patients were approached in the waiting room and invited to take part. Few of the specialists and GPs in the outreach practices held joint training and education sessions in the outreach clinic. However, over half of the GPs felt that their skills/expertise had broadened directly as a result of the outreach clinic, presumably through indirect or occasional contact with the specialists. In comparison with outpatients' clinics, patients' satisfaction with outreach clinics was increased while their financial and time costs were decreased. This preliminary analysis of the study suggests that outreach clinics appear to offer small but significant improvements in the quality of care provided.
