Sorry a bit late posting on this one but just on the subject of home visit
rates--I was involved in setting up the Mournedoc OOH co-op based in
Strabane Health Centre, Strabane, Co Tyrone, in 1996. The health board was
very supportive and issued statements saying that in effect doctors would do
the doctor stuff and patients would be responsible for the transport stuff.
I also talked to the local papers and ensured they published some pieces on
the difficulties of attracting young doctors to work out in the boonies and
do heavy on-call rotas when they could stay in Belfast or Derry where
on-call was optional. Then they covered the opening of the co-op. We had the
usual local politicians bitching about it but the message got thro v quick
that home visits were no longer to be common. Right from the word go,
despite being a small co-op covering a wide area (around 42,000 patients and
20-odd GPs AFAIR) and without any of us being really tough on visits, our
home visit rate was 5-6%. At the time, that was one of the lowest I saw
reported anywhere in the UK. I have no idea what it is like now since the
pay for on-call remains rather too low to tempt me.
Declan
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