Breast clinic triage tool: telephone assessment of new referrals

Efficient systems to triage increasing numbers of new referrals to breast clinics are needed, to optimise the management of patients with cancer and benign disease. A tool was developed to triage the urgency of referrals and allocate the most appropriate clinician consultation (surgeon or breast physician (BP)). 259 consecutive new referrals were triaged using the tool. 100% new cancers and 256 (98.8%) referrals overall were triaged to both appropriate category of urgency and the appropriate clinician. This triage tool provides a simple method for assessing new referrals to a breast clinic and can be easily delivered by trained administrative staff by telephone.