BMJ  2003;327:933 (18 October), doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7420.933-a

Letter

General practitioners with special clinical interests

Experience has been successful

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

EDITOR—Rosen et al mention the sparsity of evidence concerning the effectiveness of general practitioners in a clinical role.1 In 1999, with the support of the local health authority and more recently Torbay primary care trust, I established a cardiac diagnostic service based at my surgery. It provides echocardiography, exercise electrocardiography testing, and ambulatory electrocardiography monitoring.

The results of the first audit were as follows. During the first 12 months 271 echocardiograms, 95 exercise electrocardiograms and 125 ambulatory electrocardiograms were produced. The average wait for each test was two weeks. Results were posted to the referring general practitioner on the same day as the test. Referring general practitioners were asked to state what proportion of patients referred would have been referred to the local hospital if they had not been referred to the service, and the result was 93%. They were then asked how many were referred after the . . . [Full text of this article]

Edward Southall, general practitioner

Mayfield Medical Centre, Paignton TQ4 5LA edward.southall@gp-l83014.nhs.uk


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Relevant Article

General practitioners with special clinical interests
Rebecca Rosen, Richard Stevens, and Roger Jones
BMJ 2003 327: 460-462. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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