Clinic letters & admin / Letter
Letter footer - dictation note and signature
The blocks that sit at the bottom of every letter: the voice recognition note, the signature, and how to reach the department.
Yours sincerely, [] [post-nominal qualifications] Consultant in Respiratory Medicine [department and organisation] Tel: [] Email: [] Copy to: [patient, GP, others] This letter was created using voice recognition software. This occasionally produces errors in spelling or wording. I apologise if any have occurred, and I would be grateful if you would let me know so that they can be corrected.
Variants
Safety-netting block
For the end of a letter to a patient being discharged or left on patient-initiated follow-up.
Please contact your GP, or contact us on the number above, if you develop any of the following: a cough that persists or worsens, coughing up blood, breathlessness that is getting worse, chest pain, fevers or night sweats, or weight loss that you cannot explain. If you become severely breathless, cough up a large amount of blood, or have chest pain with sweating or faintness, call 999.
Patient-initiated follow-up block
For a patient being left to contact the service themselves rather than given a fixed appointment.
Rather than giving you a routine appointment, we are leaving your care under an arrangement called patient-initiated follow-up. This means you do not need to attend unless you need to. If your symptoms change, or you become worried, you can contact us directly on the number above and we will arrange to see you, usually within [] weeks. This arrangement lasts for [] months. You do not need to go through your GP for this, although you are welcome to see them as well. If we have not heard from you by [], we will discharge you and write to your GP. You can be referred back at any time after that.
How to use it
The voice recognition note is worth keeping. It is honest about how the letter was produced, and it explicitly invites correction — which matters when the patient is a recipient of the letter and is best placed to spot that their occupation or their medication has been transcribed wrongly. Angshu included post-nominals on the advice of a patient who was a lawyer, on the grounds that people are entitled to know the qualifications of the clinician writing to them; that is a reasonable position and the field is left for you to fill. Keep the copy-to line: a letter that names its recipients is far easier to audit than one that does not.
Why it says that
None of this is in the copied text. It is here so you can check the block against its source, and change it when the source changes.
- Academy of Medical Royal Colleges: please write to me Write to the patient, copy the GP, avoid abbreviations, and state clearly what happens next and who to contact.
- NHS England guidance on patient-initiated follow-up Patients on patient-initiated follow-up must be told how to make contact, how quickly they will be seen, and how long the arrangement lasts.