Clinic letters & admin / Consultation template
Respiratory follow-up review
The general follow-up skeleton: what has changed, what the tests show, and what the plan is now - with an explicit discharge question.
- 1Diagnosis
- 2Last seen
- 3Symptoms
- 4Exercise tolerance now
- 5Exacerbations, courses of antibiotics or…
- 6Unscheduled care or admissions
- 7New symptoms
- 8Weight
- 9kg, change of
- 10Current respiratory treatment
- 11Taken as prescribed
- 12Inhaler technique checked today
- 13Side effects
- 14Changes made since last review
- 15Imaging
- 16Lung function
and 12 more, in the block below.
Reviewed in the chest clinic. Diagnosis: [] Last seen: [] Since last seen: Symptoms: [better, unchanged, worse, and in what way] Exercise tolerance now: [] Exacerbations, courses of antibiotics or steroids: [] Unscheduled care or admissions: [] New symptoms: [] Weight: [] kg, change of [] Treatment: Current respiratory treatment: [] Taken as prescribed: [yes, or the specific problem] Inhaler technique checked today: [] Side effects: [] Changes made since last review: [] Results since last seen: Imaging: [] Lung function: [] Bloods: [] Microbiology: [] Examination: SpO2 []% on air, observations [] [] Impression: [] Plan: 1. [] 2. Investigations requested: [] 3. Discussed with the patient: [] 4. Follow-up: [in [] months, patient-initiated, or discharge] 5. If discharged: safety-netting given, and the specific symptoms that should prompt re-referral: [] Actions for the GP: []
How to use it
Two lines here are load-bearing. The first is the explicit discharge option in the follow-up field: clinics silently accumulate people who are attending out of habit, and a template that only offers an interval will produce one. The second is the separate list of actions for the GP — a letter that mentions a change of treatment somewhere in a paragraph of prose gets missed, and a headed list at the end does not. Record what was actually discussed with the patient rather than what you concluded, so the next clinician knows what the person has already been told.
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 in the second person and in plain English, with actions clearly separated, since the patient is a recipient of this letter and not just its subject.
- NHS England guidance on patient-initiated follow-up Patient-initiated follow-up as an alternative to a fixed interval, which is why it is offered as an option in the plan rather than buried.