James,
I, together with the medical director of the local OOH primary care facility, looked at the attendances over one weekend last year. We decided that about 65% were pure A&E cases; 15% were primary care and 15% were 'crossover' cases. With about 200 patients per day that's the opportunity to 'loose' 30 patients a day. These are not just simple coughs and colds either, which can usually be dealt with quite quickly, they include the odd abdo pains, deteriorated in nursing homes and COPDs that are often time consuming to see, difficult for juniors to understand and regularly difficult to discharge. The impact on our work would be quite significant.
Simon
-----Original Message-----
From: James McFetrich [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 28 October 2005 16:07
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: GPs triage
Is there anything showing actual numbers for people who 'inappropriately' attend A&E?
I appreciate that different departments will have different caseload and the definition of inappropriate will vary; most people end up saying anecdotally that 5%, 20%, 50% (insert number as appropriate) of patients who attend A&E could be dealt with by priimary care.
Has anyone even got local data on this?
James
James McFetrich
Clinical Research Fellow in Emergency Medicine and Education
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