BMJ  2006;332:669 (18 March), doi:10.1136/bmj.332.7542.669-a

Letter

GPs provide valuable continuity during age transition

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

EDITOR—We support the key elements of transitional care between adult and paediatric care advocated by McDonagh and Viner.1 However, they did not discuss the role of the general practitioner (GP) in managing chronic illness during and after transition. General practitioners play a central part in coordinating care after transition and are well placed to help provide continuity of care.

We conducted a small survey of carers of people with profound and multiple learning disabilities in Scotland. Carers were noticeably more dissatisfied by care on transition to adult services, failure of coordination of care being a central factor. In our follow-on survey of general practitioners in Lothian 65 of the 100 who responded to the questionnaire thought that they did not have adequate training to assess and treat people with profound and multiple learning disabilities, and 63 thought that they would benefit from additional training.

With an ever increasing . . . [Full text of this article]

Eleanore A Simm, medical student

s0344546@sms.ed.ac.uk Community Health Sciences, General Practice Section, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH8 9DR

Michael Brown, nurse consultant, NHS Lothian, Brian McKinstry, senior researcher

Community Health Sciences, General Practice Section, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH8 9DR


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Relevant Article

Lost in transition? Between paediatric and adult services
Janet E McDonagh and Russell M Viner
BMJ 2006 332: 435-436. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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