Alan said:
>I did a Coop shift yesterday, 87 patient contacts in 6.5 hours
>with 3 doctors covering. When both visits cars were out with
>urgent and necessary visits, slowed to a standstill by the York
>Race traffic, I held the fort, triaging calls, seeing patients, so
>with phone calls and actual patient contacts (phone them and then
>see them), I found that it was copable with but I felt even more
>of a juggler with my time than usual. Lost count of calls made and
>patients seen, best guess 50+ calls and 40+ patients.


Devil's advocate rant ;-)

Eh? 87 odd patients with 3 docs equals 30 each. Reasonable shift. So two
guys were out it would seem sitting on their butts doing visits and you did
the thick end? Were you paid per contact or did you get a shift payment? If
the latter how do you feel about doing 50 odd and the other two doing 37
between them?
Rant Off!

>There is however a definite swing towards some people using the primary
>care centre as a convenient way of getting an opinion when with a little
>forethought they could have seen their own doctor in normal hours. Are
>others finding this to be the case? I think we are also being used as a
>source of second opinion in a minority of cases. I find that this leads
>to the greatest difficulty in not treading on other professional toes.


Yes a definite swing to using OOH as an extra surgery service. We
deliberately sited our base away from AEU but central to Thanet and away
from populated areas. We still get drop ins.

>Our local paper is currently running front page stories about patients,
usually
>kids, whose parents have been unwilling to bring them to the centre. This
encourages
>a defensive attitude to visiting, where the strict clinical need for a
>visit may be suborned by the need to keep off the front page. It is plainly
>not in our terms of service to provide a taxi service or to subsidise those
>people who say they have no money for transport to us. Logistically it
>can be impossible to physically get around everyone who requests a visit.

Agree, go on the offensive, get the press guys over and talk to them,
involve CHC and maybe (long shot) your HA may help with mail drops and a
publicity campaign.

>We are an easy target for emotive journalism. We risk losing some public
>confidence if this continues.

Yup sobbing child *made* to suffer because heartless GP wouldn't come out.
We've had all that locally even a local councillor who advertised for
malcontents who had not been visited at home. All gone quiet.

I do not know the answer. All I can feel personally and chatting to docs
locally is the feeling of mounting antipathy towards OOH. I await the day
when GPs can offload it. If you are ill go to Casualty if not surgery is
open tomorrow.

Paul Attwood
GP Thanet



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