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Neurological illnesses are a common cause of hospital admissions, yet most patients are not primarily managed by neurologists. Acute neurology service provision varies across the UK. This study aimed to establish the number of neurological admissions during a 2-week period in a district general hospital, as well as the proportion of those patients who were seen by the hyperacute neurology team. This was done by analysing the diagnostic codes. It was established that there was a total of 2,242 admissions during the study period and, of those, 491 (22%) had neurological codes. Analysis of the 491 hospital electronic records revealed that 229 (10%) were truly neurologically relevant and, of those, 14% of patients received an opinion from the neurology team. Therefore, it can be concluded that only a small proportion of acute neurology is currently being seen by neurologists.
Kanagaratnam et al. (Sun,) studied this question.