Julian
Interesting comments
Particularly intrigued by your musing that it might enable DOH to circumvent / undermine GP in the case of industrial action etc.
To be honest none of what I have seen from the DOH to date would make me think they have the wit to think about even some of the simple implications of NHS Direct let alone have the devious "master of the universe" foresight to be able to think up the scams you describe.
Interestingly however in my experience to date a lot of GPs can recognize potential uses of NHS Direct much faster than our HA colleagues......maybe we are just more insightful or devious
I bet you suspect there was a second gunman on the grassy knoll and watch the X-Files ;-)
Your comments however should spur us GPs / Co-ops to get involved in NHS-Direct and get influence in the project rather than surrender it to our ambulance colleagues
Not least as one of the first questions the DOH are already asking is "if NHS Direct takes over some of the GP OOH workload then some of the GP OOH funding should be rerouted to NHS-Direct" (direct quote from a HA Chief Exec)
If your not sitting at the management table you loose most of your influence
Best wishes
Jim
Member of Harmoni, the GP Co-op leading the WeLNHS-Direct bid with community Trust and Health Authority partners
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From: Julian Bradley[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 13 August 1998 12:20
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: NHS Direct
At 10:19 PM 6/14/98 +0000,
Trims wrote
>Interesting article in the Health Service Journal this week. I offer
>this synopsis, without prejudice, for further discussion.
>Dr Ian Trimble http://www.sherwood.demon.co.uk/
Again, without prejudice, and only as suggestions for further discussion ....
Could it be that one reason that the government has moved hastily to widen
this pilot is its ability to undermine any patient related industrial
action by GPs? Indeed even widespread resignation might be a lot less
threatening to both govt and pts if there were a telephone service
universally and readily available.
Another interesting effect of the phoneline is that it has the potential to
undermine peoples confidence in their GP. Sometimes of course GPs get it
wrong, but equally if you tell 2 different teams 2 different stories you
will get 2 different answers.
Finally, in contrast to the opening position, the helpline is not going to
automatically feed back individual patient care advice to practices. This
seems another erosion of the GP clinical record as the cornerstone record
in the NHS though I appreciate that not everyone sees this as particularly
important.
NHS Direct had features that were potentially benficial to both patients
and doctors, however the haste and manner with which it is being introduced
(almost all ambulance controlled) might be thought to raise some of these
questions which I haven't seen directly asked so far. What do others think?
JB
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