Handovers...

I just wanted to talk about patient handovers from physio's in perth hospitals to country physio's when a patient is discharged. being on my country placement, i just had a 20yr old guy come in 1 week post tibia fracture and stabilisation. he had been in hospital in perth (not mentioning any names!) for his op and we recieved a faxed referral from the physio that was treating him in hospital. all the referral said was his name, age, the actual injury and what surgery he underwent. i think that either the physio was very slack, or she just assumed that the patient would be able to pass on all the necessary info to me himself. when he came into see me with his mother, neither of them could tell me if he was supposed to be non or partial weight bearing, and also they had no other instructions as far as exercises went. he had been partial weight bearing as he had not been told otherwise (turned out he was non weightbearing for 6 wks!). The physio i am working with had to call this physio and ask her all the details, and basically told her how useless her handover was and that she expected better.
So i think the lesson learnt is for us all to make an effort with handover and referral summaries, as we cant expect the patients to remember (or be honest) about their instructions. I think it is also just curtesy to include as much info as we can so that we dont leave other physios with no understanding of our patient, or make more work for them.