"If you've got a long-term condition, you might want to think in future about different GPs and whether they're providing a full range of service for that condition."
This comments on one of the roles that we have in General Practice, which is dealing with long-term conditions - like Diabetes or Stable Angina or Bipolar illness. This is part of my role, to be sure, but his analysis is rather facile in that it tries to break things down into compartments - the Diabetic usually has arthritis and may have depression as well. One of the skills we have is to be able to manage things holistically, dealing with a lot of different things.
We have many other things to deal with, and if we cannot deal with a specific problem, there is usually someone in the practice who can do other things.
A lot of medicine is about having to deal with incurable problems - persistent low back pain, or dementia, or learning difficulties - and just being there for patients: supporting people as they get iller.
General Practice is about lots of other things, such as co-ordinating specialised services, or explaining what is going on to people. The art and science of diagnosis is vital. The idea that people will "shop around" for different practices who offer different services is, I'm afraid, marginal.
One of the things I've experienced in my long career is how loyal patients are, and what a fantastic relationship we have with many of our patients. I have known people to ask for my practice area when they are moving house, so that they can tell the estate agent that they do not wish to buy a house outside of that area.
Once again the Bureaucrat's understanding of the relationship is based on competition and comparison.
Life is not like that.
Life is not like that.
6 comments:
yea life is great if you are lucky enough to have one of the top 10% of GP's in the country
sadly if you have one of the bottom 10% you are stuffed and there is absolutely fuck all you can do about it in the british system other than move house, big brother state dictates which GP you can use
i know quite a lot of people with complex medical problems, do they get better care in the UK than my similar friends in Belgium/Italy/France er in a world NO NO FUCKING NO
come on JD you were better when you acknowledged fuck all was done about the fucking shit GP's many of us get lumbered with
Interesting comments anonymous.
You feel the brave new Lansley/Cameron NHS will improve this? How?
Gosh, anonymous (1), your language belittles your point. I have had a long term relationship with a great GP - but also find that when she is away or unavailable, her various partners are all excellent and supportive. I think you are too cynical. Sure, there are bad GPs but, for the most part, GPs are a group of highly intelligent people doing their best in increasingly difficult circumstance. They are also, contrary to what the media will have you believe, highly trained. Most of them, for example, provide excellent and skilled care and support for terminally ill patients - and yet the BBC and the Daily Mail has forgotten that. It's all Macmillan now. GPs are never mentioned in this context. Thus, despite the efforts of the JD, by underestimating what GPs can do, and by continually denigrating them, we are about to lose the traditional role of the GP. Continual battering by people like you (I bet you read the Daily Mail) means that doctors like the JD are counting the days to retirement.
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
'Til it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
his is happening in Kentucky too. Check out www.bluegrassreport.org to see the federal case pending against Gov.
nothing to do with cynicism, 100% realism I am afraid, I am convinced I could demonstrate to JD just how bad some of his fellow GP's are if he would just like to follow me round one afternoon...
and given that many should be kicked out of the job and the patients have no choice what exactly is the mechanism JD proposes to solve this? complaints system does not work... being forced to move house is not ideal... my vote is allowing the patients to take their business anywhere they like and I have heard no argument that makes sense to the contrary
What is frightening about this stuff is that it is all politics, it doesn't make sense and it doesn't have to. I'm thinking Iraq war, privatisation of railways, liberalisation of drinking - you didn't have to be an expert to see what would happen butthat wasn't the main thing, apparently.
Hope I'm being too cynical about this, all the same.
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