Mapping of themes.
| Theme | Category |
|---|---|
| Safety/quality of care | Clinical responsibility |
| Knowing the patient | |
| Training | |
| Importance of seeing the patient | |
| Concerns whether the patient is able to describe symptoms adequately | |
| Concerns the doctor fails to ask something important | |
| Confidentiality/misidentification | |
| Appropriate use of telephone consulting | |
| Perceived riskiness of telephone consulting | |
| Fear of litigation | |
| Safety netting | |
| Continuity of care | |
| Use of emergency face-to-face consulting as alternative to telephone consulting | |
| Access to care | Perception of telephone consulting as facilitator or barrier to access |
| Demographically disadvantaged | |
| Demographically advantaged | |
| Patient choice | |
| Negotiation | |
| Urban/rural differences | |
| Impact on workload | Views on overall impact on workload |
| Impact on patients' time | |
| Content of telephone consulting | Depth of enquiry |
| Length of consultation | |
| Number of problems | |
| Social speech/humour | |
| Empathy/ reassurance | |
| Control | |
| Technical/organisational issues | Organisation of telephone consulting |
| Physical barriers | |
| Mobile phones | |