Results
This audit included a total of 97 appointments during a 5-week period.
Indications for Consultation
Figure 1 shows the indications for each individual
consultation,including re-attendances by the same patient. Otitis
externa was by far the most frequent indication for an appointment,
followed by epistaxis and foreign bodies in the ear. Surprisingly,
patients whose appointments had been cancelled or postponed due to the
pandemic made up only 1%.
Repeat Consultations
Repeat attendances made up 26/97 episodes of patient care. The most
frequent diagnoses when adjusted to not include re-attenders are;
foreign bodies (18%), epistaxis (17%) and OE (15%).. Of these
re-attendances 13 were planned repeat consultations arranged by ENT, 11
were either via ED or repeat GP referral and in 2 cases the patient
called the department. The greatest number of repeat appointments was 5
in an otitis externa patient, this patient had unfortunately been
mismanaged by the GP and was resistant to further advice. Aside from
this all remaining patients had either 2 or 3 appointments and 9 of the
16 patients had at least one phone appointment. Overwhelmingly the most
common diagnosis in patients with repeat appointments was otitis externa
followed by epistaxis nasal trauma and bleeding ears (Figure 2)
Age Distribution
The most frequently attending age group (Figure 3) was 0-9, primarily
due to foreign bodies. Accounting for repeat appointments did not have a
significant effect on age distribution.
Telephone Consultations
As described in Table 1, 26/97 appointments were carried out over the
telephone. A total of 13 patients were solely managed with telephone
consultations.