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Welcome News
CALL FOR LONGER, Welcome to your
IN an ideal world, all patients would stick to their treatment plans diligently, carefully following your advice and never missing review appointments. But in the real world this doesn’t always happen. While it may be tempting to discontinue treatment for non-compliant patients, the risks of doing so must be carefully considered. My article on page 12 looks at this tricky issue in more detail. Plans to update healthcare
for the 21st century have included much discussion of the importance of so-called “patient-centred” care. But what does this new approach mean for GPs? Our article on page 5 takes a closer look. A growing number of people now identify as transgender or have gender incongruence and have complex healthcare needs. Do you know how best to care for this patient group? MDDUS risk and medical adviser Dr Gail Gilmartin offers
COVER PHOTOGRAPH: ASH
MDDUS URGES EARLY REFORM TO REDUCE
EDITOR: Dr Susan Gibson-Smith
ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Joanne Curran Jim Killgore
DESIGN: Connect Communications
connectcommunications.co.uk
PRINT: Printwell
www.printwell-ltd.co.uk
CORRESPONDENCE: GPst Editor MDDUS Mackintosh House 120 Blythswood Street Glasgow G2 4EA
t: e: 0845 270 2034
jcurran@mddus.com w:
www.mddus.com
INDEMNITY COST PRESSURES MDDUS has urged the government to work towards early implementation of measures to reduce legal costs in clinical negligence cases. MDDUS chief executive Chris Kenny has written to Minister for NHS
Productivity Lord Prior of Brampton, who is responsible for taking the next steps following the government’s recent review of GP indemnity. In the letter, Mr Kenny urged the government to push through plans to reduce legal costs in clinical negligence claims as soon as possible. “We welcome the fact that in the recently published GP Indemnity
Review, the government and NHS England found the indemnity market to be competitive and that the price increases our members face are fundamentally driven by factors beyond our own control,” Mr Kenny said. “The absence of effective controls on the amount of costs which can
be recovered in negligence cases is a key driver and substantive action is required on the underlying causes of these increases. The scope for savings are considerable, especially for lower value claims. We have many examples of where the amount paid in legal costs is significantly greater than the compensation payments made to the patient. “It is for that reason that the idea of a cap to overcome these perverse
GPst is published by The Medical and Dental Defence Union of Scotland, Registered in Scotland No 5093 at Mackintosh House, 120 Blythswood Street, Glasgow G2 4EA. The MDDUS is not an insurance company. All the benefits of membership of MDDUS are discretionary as set out in the Articles of Association. The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by the various authors in GPst are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of the Medical and Dental Defence Union of Scotland.
incentives of the current system is so attractive. Not only will it ensure tighter cost management in individual cases, but it will help ensure the strongest cases are selected and prepared in a cost-effective way.”
advice on page 4. The death of a one-year-old
child from sepsis has highlighted the need for better recognition of this condition and greater awareness among GPs. Find out more on page 6. No one relishes the idea of receiving a patient complaint, but it’s important to respond constructively. On page 7 Dr Gail Gilmartin looks at two types of complaint: those which are “accurate” and those which are not. Busy GP Chris James talks about caring for elite dancers as company doctor for English National Ballet in our profile on page 10, while our career article on page 8 takes a closer look at the role of GPs with a special interest in dementia. And on page 14, we examine the case of a child presenting with what seems to be a viral infection.
• Dr Susan Gibson-Smith Editor
FEWER GP CONSULTATIONS THE BMA is calling for the standard 10-minute GP consultation to be increased to 15 and the total number of consultations per day limited to 25 rather than the 40 or more per GP seen in some surgeries. These are among proposals published in a BMA report - Safe Working Levels in General Practice - which looks at measures to help tackle the “rocketing workload”. To achieve this the report
considers the potential impact of ‘locality hubs’ where demand, patient lists and safe working limits would be managed for a number of local practices with GPs benefiting from greater integration, collaboration and
flexible employment patterns. This hub model was featured in the plans outlined in NHS England’s GP Forward View, which included £500m of recurrent funding to provide extra primary care capacity and a £171m one-off investment by clinical commissioning groups from 2017/18 for practice transformational support. BMA GPs committee executive
team member Dr Brian Balmer said: “We need a new approach that shakes up the way patients get their care from their local GP practice. [M]ore GPs must be put in front of patients so that the number of consultations per GP a day falls to a sustainable level.”
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