Patients who include their doctor’s name in messages to them are nearly twice as likely to receive a reply as those who do not, a study has found.
Researchers from Harvard University in the US analysed 3.6 million patient messages from more than 511,000 people.
They found that the way people write to their doctor – whether in length, formality, greeting, sentiment or punctuation – played a role in determining whether they received a response.
The findings come as surveys reveal nearly half of Britons do not know their GP’s name.
One 2018 analysis found that just 41 per cent of British adults said
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