Patients' experience of teleconsultations in the UK

Teleconsultations were introduced for cancer surgery follow-up to ease pressure on hospital services and facilitate patients' access to those services. There is limited evidence on patients' perceptions of this swift shift in service provision.

The purpose of this qualitative systematic review was to explore patient experiences of teleconsultations within NHS cancer surgery follow-up services to better understand patient perceptions, satisfaction and acceptability of teleconsultations within cancer services.

Medline, Embase, PubMed and Google Scholar were searched up to 1 July 2022. Qualitative studies were synthesised using the Braun and Clarke framework.

There were three overarching themes: accessibility; patient experience; and consultation.

Teleconsultations were widely accepted among cancer surgical patients. However, there were reports of a lack of rapport building and emotional support because of the absence of visual cues and patient camaraderie.