A four-year study of telephone support for oncology patients using a non-supervised call centre

A non-supervised call centre was used to allow oncology patients to contact their personal doctors 24 hours a day. Incoming patient calls to the centre were automatically routed to the doctor's mobile phone or office telephone. Over four years, an average of 407 calls were made each year, by an average of 274 oncology patients. The average number of emergency hospital visits was 24 per year (0.09 per patient), compared with 42 per year (0.16 per patient) during the year before the telephone service began. The average number of outreach visits was 783 (2.9 per patient) per year during the study, in comparison with 722 (2.8 per patient) before it began. The average number of non-emergency hospital admissions was 41 (0.15 per patient) per year in comparison with 42 (0.17 per patient) before the study. Calls were short (typically 3-5 min) and the majority (88%) were made on the patient's initiative. Outreach patients in receipt of chemotherapy were the principal users (making 88% of all calls). Excluding the initial investment cost, the income received was approximately the same as the running costs of the call centre in two of the three years for which data were available.