If not, why not?
Chaand Nagpaul, chair of the GP committee of the British Medical Association, said government healthcare policies were pushing back into the community many patients who previously would have been in long-term hospital care.
He denied accusations that family doctors were abandoning older patients, saying the decision – taken at an emergency summit over the weekend – was in recognition that such patients had needs that GPs were unable to meet.
Dr Nagpaul told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “The problem we have got is that patients in care homes have additional complex needs who would have been in a hospital setting. You wouldn’t expect GPs for example to visit patients in hospital when they have been admitted to hospital.”
That sounds awfully familiar. In fact, it sounds like the sort of argument that could be used against the practice of ‘inclusion’ in schools…
“This is a government policy of moving many ill patients, who need to be receiving specialist care, outside of a hospital setting,” he said.
“The idea that GPs suddenly take on this work when in fact such patients do need specialist care ... What we have got at the moment is a contract that really makes no differentiation.”
But I suspect if they were to pay you more, all these objections might suddenly disappear!
At their special conference in London on Saturday, dozens of GPs’ representatives spoke about how the workload they faced increased the risks to patients and made their jobs increasingly unbearable.
Funny how they never say the same things about government initiatives to record all our personal information, isn’t it?
3 comments:
I note as so much NHS money is wasted on bureaucracy and administrators the NHS is cutting back on what it spends on patience. Denial and rationing is now the order of the day has been for a long time in fact. The doctor as speedily as possible processes the patient then sends them on their way without even platitudes, their bedside manner these days stink. Having in many cases misdiagnosed the problem rarely attempted to cure it as they are all now brainwashed into thinking that all life's ill can be cured by the magic lifestyle tree.
That the NHS is run for their benefit not their clients the patience is endemic thinking that permeates all levels of the NHS. I have seen a healthcare system that actually works but then the environment that it works in is not formed by it being a monopoly or an all public sector provider.
The NHS these days is a prime example of Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy - as are most so-called "Public Services" in the UK.
For those unwilling to Google it:-
Iron Law of Bureaucracy
In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control and those dedicated to the goals the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely.
Sums it all up neatly, doesn't it?
"The doctor as speedily as possible processes the patient then sends them on their way without even platitudes, their bedside manner these days stink. "
And I can't see it getting better, no matter what...
"Sums it all up neatly, doesn't it?"
Yes. Yes, it does.. *sighs*
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