An audit of environmental health calls to a department of public health medicine

Purpose: To audit telephone calls concerning general issues in communicable disease control and environmental health to a department of public health medicine. Setting: A department of public health medicine in a district with a population of 190000 during 1993. Method: A retrospective audit of forms designed to record all calls concerning environmental health and communicable disease control. The intervention was a change in design of forms and education of doctors dealing with the calls. A re-audit was done after these changes had been implemented. Results: The number of recorded calls increased from 1.75 (1992) to 3.29 (mid-1993) per week. Signing of forms increased from 61% to 83% and dating from 6% to 72%. All forms filled in by registrars or senior registrars were reviewed by the Consultant in Communicable Disease Control (CCDC). Very few calls were considered to be inappropriate. Discussion: The increase in the number of calls was probably artefactual owing to better recording as a result of the audit. Improved recording will help in future training and audit, and be a medico-legal safeguard.