Objective: To see whether care provided by general practitioners to non-emergency patients in an accident and emergency department differs significantly from care by usual accident and emergency staff in terms of process, outcome, and comparative cost.
Design: A randomised controlled trial.
Setting: A busy inner city hospital's accident and emergency department which employed three local general practitioners on a sessional basis.
Patients: All new attenders categorised by the triage system as "semiurgent" or "delay acceptable." 66% of all attenders were eligible for inclusion.
Main outcome measures: Numbers of patients undergoing investigation, referral, or prescription; types of disposal; consultation satisfaction scores; reattendance to accident and emergency department within 30 days of index visit; health status at one month; comparative cost differences.
Results: 4684 patients participated. For semiurgent patients, by comparison with usual accident and emergency staff, general practitioners investigated fewer patients (relative difference 20%; 95% confidence interval 16% to 25%), referred to other hospital services less often (39%; 28% to 47%), admitted fewer patients (45%; 32% to 56%), and prescribed more often (41%; 30% to 54%). A similar trend was found for patients categorised as delay acceptable and (in a separate analysis) by presenting complaint category. 393 (17%) patients who had been seen by general practitioner staff reattended the department within 30 days of the index visit; 418 patients (18%) seen by accident and emergency staff similarly reattended, 435 patients (72% of those eligible) completed the consultation satisfaction questionnaire and 258 (59% of those eligible) provided health status information one month after consultation. There were no differences between patients managed by general practitioners and those managed by usual staff regarding consultation satisfaction questionnaire scores or health status. For all patients seen by general practitioners during the study, estimated marginal and total savings were Ir1427 pounds and Ir117,005 pounds respectively.
Conclusion: General practitioners working as an integral part of an accident and emergency department manage non-emergency accident and emergency attenders safely and use fewer resources than do usual accident and emergency staff.