Making a call - in fact any - call to a patient or relative who is currently waiting for news of unwell loved one or of test results, such as biopsy results?
Read this first. (thread inspired by a friend's recent experience)

Take a deep breath, think briefly about who you're phoning and of what they're fearing, anticipating. Imagine a spectrum from 'all' clear to 'worst possible pathology', or from 'completely out of danger' to 'has died'. Recognise they will be hypervigilent. Now, think about the

news you're about to give and where it is on that spectrum. If it's not great news, but not dreadful, then you are naturally inclined to preface your news with things like 'unfortunately' or 'I'm afraid'
The trouble with those though, is that for the person your calling, in their

current state, those preface words are going to be heard as a preface to the worst possible news. So, here's what you need to do in order to communicate compassionately, in a way that is carefully designed for this person, this call, this timing of the call.....

Start with brief hellos, give your name, who you are, what you do (if they might not know), check their name, and as soon as you possibly can, say something that clearly communicates you're not about to give that worst possible news, e.g.

X is doing OK still (but she had a bit of a wakeful night, needed a bit more morphine....)
I know you're waiting for them, but I'm not phoning with your biopsy results, because unfortunately they've been delayed...

Don't do hellos+names then barge straight into "Unfortunately, pause...., your biopsy results have been delayed..." you'll have had them in deep distress as soon as you said 'unfortunately'.

Tldr: anticipate how the person you're talking to might react to what you are about to say, especially the negative interpretations they could make of the first things you say & do something to stop that, head it off at the pass, circumvent it, issue a disclaimer first.

On disclaimers, see Paul Denvir 2012 in Social Science and Medicine

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