An extra letter, care gets better? Informing general practitioners about planned surgery for head and neck cancer.

Objective: To investigate how general practitioners (GPs) value an additional letter from the hospital. This so-called preadmission letter informs the GP about planned surgery for head and neck cancer in one of their patients.

Design: Prospective survey among GPs by means of a questionnaire attached to the preadmission letter.

Setting: Department of Otolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery of a tertiary care centre in the Netherlands and 104 different GPs in primary care.

Participants: All GPs of patients undergoing surgery for head and neck cancer received the preadmission letter during a 1-year study period.

Main Outcome Measures: GPs' appreciation of the received preadmission letter, GPs' opinion on the content of the preadmission letter, and GPs' general opinion on information provided by our hospital.

Results: Of the 145 preadmission letters sent during the study year, 115 questionnaires were returned (response rate of 79%). All GPs positively appreciated receiving the preadmission letter and considered its content relevant. They valued the letter, with a mean mark of 8.3 on a 10-point scale. The majority of the GPs agreed that the preadmission letter allows them to provide better care.

Conclusions: GPs highly appreciate an extra letter informing them about intended surgery for head and neck cancer in one of their patients. Despite the basic content of the preadmission letter (five items only), the majority of GPs consider the information sufficient. The results of this study have led to the implementation of the preadmission letter to GPs of head and neck cancer patients on a permanent basis in our institution.