How to approach safety netting in general practice

Today, we’re speaking to Dr Pete Edwards, a GP and NIHR Research Fellow based at the University of Bristol. Pete has published a research article in the February issue of the BJGP titled,’ Safety-netting advice documentation in out-of-hours primary care: a retrospective cohort from 2013 to 2020’ along with an editorial about safety netting that we’re going to discuss today.Title of paper: Safety-netting advice documentation in out-of-hours primary care: a retrospective cohort from 2013 to 2020Available at: https://doi.org/10.3399/BJGP.2024.0057Title of editorial: Safety netting in primary care : managing the low incidence, high uncertainty of severe illnessAvailable at: https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgp25X740529Previous research has reported on safety-netting advice (SNA) documented in patient records during in-hours practice but this, to the authors’ knowledge, is the first large-scale (>1000 consultations) longitudinal analysis of the type of safety-netting documented advice during out-of-hours (OOH) primary care. This study demonstrated an increasing frequency of documented SNA in OOH records and increasing utility of specific advice over time. In contrast to previous reports of verbalised safety-netting during in-hours practice, this study found a higher frequency of SNA in records from face-to-face compared with telephone encounters. This study also showed safety-netting advice was more likely to be documented for patients with possible infections, but less frequently for mental health consultations. That is a possible area for improvement, in line with current UK policy for ‘parity of esteem’ between physical and mental health conditions.