BMJ 1999;318:1420 ( 22 May )

Letters

Role of general practitioners in NHS must not be undervalued

    Author underestimated figures
    Author's reply

Author underestimated figures

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR---We should be grateful to Majeed for his re-estimation of the proportion of medical care that takes place in general practice.1 His calculation that the proportion is about 70% is, however, too low, as he has extracted the wrong figure from the fourth national survey of morbidity statistics from general practice. The stated figure of 2.9 consultations per person year is the doctor contact rate. The calculated consultation rate, which allows for the fact that there may be consultations for a range of separate conditions during the same visit, was 3.5 per person year, or 3.6 per person year allowing for underrecording in the national survey.2

For an annual estimate we must start with the total English population in 1991 minus prisoners and service personnel---48 million. This should be inflated by 3.5% for duplicate registrations (in the fourth national survey of morbidity in general practice) and then multiplied by 3.6 to . . . [Full text of this article]
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to StumbleUpon StumbleUpon   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?

Relevant Article

Role of hospitals in NHS must not be undervalued
Azeem Majeed
BMJ 1998 317: 1653. [Extract] [Full Text]

Rapid Responses:

Read all Rapid Responses

Where did the estimate of '90%' come from?
Tom Hennell
bmj.com, 22 May 1999 [Full text]
Telephone encounters are rare in hospitals and common in GP
Adrian Midgley
bmj.com, 21 May 1999 [Full text]
Access jobs at BMJ Careers
Whats new online at Student BMJ