BMJ : British medical journal
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study Clinical Trial
NHS Direct versus general practice based triage for same day appointments in primary care: cluster randomised controlled trial.
To assess the relative effects on consultation workload and costs of off-site triage by NHS Direct for patients requesting same day appointments compared with usual on-site nurse telephone triage in general practice. ⋯ External management of requests for same day appointments by nurse telephone triage through NHS Direct is possible but comes at a higher cost than practice nurse delivered triage in primary care. If NHS Direct could achieve the same proportions of consultation types as practice based triage, costs would be comparable.