> There is so much adverse publicity directed at the profession
> that the public won't support the consultants who are being
> portrayed as greedy.
Bit of spin there. However, remember doctors are the most trusted group by
the general public- possibly misrepresented by members of a few other
professions who resent the high level of training consultants have, but the
views of journalists don't represent the public on this one.
> HMG. have all the aces. 9.000
> unemployed docs in Europe,
Who are unwilling to work as consultants in the UK- they've just tried that
and failed.
> paramedics,
May take on a fair bit of the work being dropped by juniors. Unlikely to
impact on consultant workload.
> fast tracking,
> streaming,
Tried in a couple of places, most of which had extra resources to do it or
are asking for more to continue. BTW, the Coventry experiment on fast
tracking: good idea, nicely written paper, but look at the numbers- happened
in a department that didn't see all that many sick patients. During the
experiment, their higher triage category patients took considerably longer
to be seen. May not have hit statistical significance, but if an accurate
representation, clinical significance would be important.
> NHS direct, walk in centres, the list goes on.
They've impacted on doctors' workload?
There have been a few interesting ideas around, but basically they've shown
that attempting to provide anything other than a consultant led service is
considerably more expensive and achieves at best equivalent results, but in
a limited group of patients (with presumably worse results in patient
falling outside that group).
We are left with the fact that HMG needs consultants (and more importantly,
the goodwill of consultants) to provide a halfway decent service. Loss of
that goodwill will result both in increased costs and a poorer service. The
phrase 'played their aces and been trumped' comes to mind but suggests
competition rather than collaboration. More to the point, these initiatives
have shown what good value fully trained consultants are.
Matt Dunn
Warwick
This email has been scanned for viruses by NAI AVD however we are unable to
accept responsibility for any damage caused by the contents.
The opinions expressed in this email represent the views of the sender, not
South Warwickshire General Hospitals NHS Trust unless explicitly stated.
If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender.
|