BMJ 1994;309:56-57 (2 July)

Letters

Community hospitals in the new NHS

EDITOR, - Doctors working in community hospitals will have been disappointed by the lukewarm tone of Sam Ramaiah's editorial.1 This tone is surprising at a time when interest in the concept of community hospitals has increased greatly, with new hospitals being built (or converted from other types of hospital) in many areas. In Scotland alone, new units have opened in Grampian and Highland and are being planned in Ayrshire and Arran and even in the City of Aberdeen.

Ramaiah seems to see these as long stay units in competition with private nursing homes. Certainly there are long stay beds in community hospitals, as in other NHS hospitals, and urgent debate is needed on the role of the NHS in the provision of long stay care. Community hospitals (or, more accurately, general practitioner-community hospitals) are not, however, primarily long stay institutions. In an audit of admissions to 11 Scottish general practitioner . . . [Full text of this article]


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