Safety netting in primary care
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Safety netting and re-consultation for lung cancer symptoms: GP and patient perspectives
IRAS ID
236932
Contact name
Georgia Black
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University College London
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
Z6364106/2018/07/72 social research, UCL Data Protection Registration
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 11 months, 30 days
Research summary
It takes longer to reach a diagnosis for lung cancer than for many of the other major cancer types, which contributes to poorer survival rates. Some common initial symptoms for lung cancer can seem like nothing much to worry about, such as a cough and tiredness. These symptoms indicate a low risk, but not NO risk of lung cancer, and are classed as “low predictive value symptoms”. These do not qualify for the rapid 2 week wait referral which would lead to a speedy diagnosis. Patients who present with these low predictive value symptoms have a much lower chance of surviving for five years than those with far more alarming symptoms.
Policymakers are looking for ways to speed up diagnostic pathways for low predictive value symptoms in all cancers, including lung. Primary care ‘safety netting’ covers a broad range of strategies to encourage patients to return to the GP if their original symptoms do not resolve. This is to reduce delays in getting diagnosed and treated for patients with low predictive value symptoms. Understanding what safety netting strategies GPs are using now, and how they can be optimized will help to improve the timely diagnosis and survival rate among lung cancer patients.
We want to know:
1. How are the current strategies of “safety netting” implemented in General Practice, with regard to patients who present with common lung symptoms with low predictive value?2. What are the unintended negative effects of “safety netting”, from the perspectives of both doctor and patient?
We are using a paired design, conducting interviews with both patients who have recently experienced some low value predictive symptoms and their most recently visited GP. We want to understand real examples of safety netting in consultations from both GP and patient perspectives.
REC name
London - Central Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
18/LO/1550
Date of REC Opinion
24 Oct 2018
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion