Nearly half of the average appointment at an outpatient clinic is wasted while the doctor fills in forms and tries to find the right notes, a study has found

The research, published by the Royal Society of Medicine also found that consultants spent much less time talking to patients than 13 years ago.

The study looked at 167 out-patients appointments at a general urology clinic at Whittington Hospital in north London.

The most conspicuous waste of time is in hunting for missing notes or results

Report's authors

Researchers found that an average appointment lasted 8.2 minutes, of which just 4.8 minutes were spent talking to the patient.

The remaining time was taken up by administrative tasks such as looking for the patient's notes.

A similar study carried out 13 years ago found that doctors spent 7.6 minutes talking to a patient.

In the new study, researchers found some 41% of consulting time was spent away from the patients.

Of this time, 17% was spent on administration, 15% on disturbances from the telephone or other staff and 9% on finding results.

In a quarter of consultations, delays were caused by missing results or other records.

Investment needed

The authors recommend that for outpatient clinics to cope with recent government demands for shorter waiting times, there has to be an investment in information technology and support staff.

The article points out "the most conspicuous waste of time is in hunting for missing notes or results" mainly because of delays in typing reports where appropriate.

Other delays are caused by administration, which might be improved by computerisation, and by interruptions.

The authors concluded that if inefficiencies could be cut by half, consultants could spend more time with patients or "throughput could be increased by one third".

A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said the RSM paper was out of date.

She added: "Since the study - carried out 18 months ago - £1 million has been invested in an electronic x-ray system, increased numbers of consultants have been recruited and nurse-led clinics have been introduced to ensure doctors are able to spend as much time with patients as possible."

But Shadow Health Secretary Dr Liam Fox said: "This is timely proof of what those involved with the NHS already know - New Labour's obsession with micromanagement and control has turned the NHS into a glorified paperchase."