Healthcare professional survey

This study is about the letters that rheumatology healthcare professionals write after an outpatient appointment. These are called clinic letters.

National guidance advises healthcare professionals to write clinic letters directly to patients, but not everyone does. Instead, some healthcare professional write these letters to their patients’ GPs. A copy may also be sent to the patients.

We are carrying out this survey as part of a wider project. Our aim is to develop a set of resources to encourage and support rheumatology healthcare professionals to write directly to patients.

To help us do this, we need to know more about healthcare professionals’ current practice, the views of people who write clinic letters, and the barriers to and facilitators of writing directly to patients. 

We are asking rheumatology healthcare professionals to complete our survey, which takes about 10 minutes to complete.

We want to hear from people who:

• currently provide healthcare to patients attending an NHS/HSC rheumatology outpatient department(s) in the UK;
• as part of routine care, write letters summarising NHS/HSC rheumatology outpatient clinic consultations in the UK (either to the GP or to the patient);
• can speak English;
• have capacity (the ability) to provide consent to take part.

Learn more

• Advert – healthcare professional survey (PDF)
• Participant information – healthcare professional survey (PDF)

Take part

This survey is now closed.

For information on our interview study for healthcare professionals, please see: