BMJ 1995;310:867 (1 April)

Letters

GPs must take some responsibility

EDITOR,--Richard Hobbs fails adequately to address two reasons, which he himself cites, for the increase in emergency admission--namely, raised expectations of general practitioners and worries over litigation.1 It would be difficult to argue that the rise in emergency admissions in recent years bears no relation to the increased demand for home visits by general practitioners, among other factors, as general practitioners pass on some of this workload to hospital doctors. In addition, faced with an increasingly litigious public, general practitioners are more often (not surprisingly) playing safe and admitting patients if in doubt.

While sympathising with the increased pressures that general practitioners are facing, we must also recognise some of the more disturbing factors that are fuelling this problem. In some situations it seems that fundholding general practitioners, who have a financial incentive to avoid paying for outpatient appointments, admit patients with semiurgent problems as emergencies. In addition, a minority . . . [Full text of this article]


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Relevant Article

Rising emergency admissions
Richard Hobbs
BMJ 1995 310: 207-208. [Extract] [Full Text]

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