We aspire to speak to all young individuals having cardiac screening because there’s a lot of anxiety associated with screenings. Unfortunately, some of these screening programmes are very large, involving 200 people on any given day and it’s very difficult to have a detailed discussion with a cardiologist if there are 200 people wanting the same thing.
Currently, on the understanding that only 4% of people that we screen will need further tests, we don’t say anything to the 96% who are going to be normal but they do hear from us within two or three weeks, in writing, to say that everything’s alright.
We usually confine discussions about abnormal results to those individuals in whom we feel there is a problem, who live very far away and who may need local referral to a cardiologist. Say if it’s Bournemouth, we may not bring them all the way back to London, we’d want them referred, it’s just to pre-warn them that they may be getting a letter suggesting that further investigations are required.
For the people with normal investigations, they hear in writing.
