Triage or treatment?

The role of the RATC within the patient pathway

RATC Key points:

• RATCs are clinical evaluation tools – treatment should not be set up in the clinic
• Patient diagnosis and treatment should remain with the specialist
• Triage system used for notoriously hard to diagnose patients

The role of the RATC is to provide an initial clinical evaluation and not to diagnose and treat patients. Although it is important to diagnose and treat patients quickly, current statistics show that a number of syncope patients are being misdiagnosed and potentially given the wrong treatment. The value of triage systems is widely recognised and can provide a valuable filtering process for patients who present with blackouts/T-LoCs and are hard to diagnose. The multi-disciplinary setting allows for a patient to be assessed without any presuppositions.