Community hospitals are polyclinics by another name

doi:10.1136/bmj.39583.696655.3A

BMJ 2008;336:1145 (24 May), doi:10.1136/bmj.39583.696655.3A

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Community hospitals are polyclinics by another name

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

When I read the article by Finch,¹ I realised that our trust,and many other rural trusts, has been running polyclinics fordecades—except we call them community hospitals. We run11 of these in small Dorset market towns. They are usually withina few hundred metresof the local general practice, and the generalpractitioners are variously involved from managing beds, doingminor operations lists, gastroscopy sessions, etc. Consultantsfrom all the local hospitals run clinics in the community hospitals,and surgeons perform a sizeable number of operations there.Several of the hospitals have small mental health inpatientunitswith community mental health units based there. The hospitalsprovide physiotherapy, occupational therapy, and a range ofdiagnostic services. Many elderly patients can be investigatedor, if necessary, admitted which prevents admissions to acutehospitals and the small size allows innovative joint workingbetween old age medicine and psychiatry.

Perhaps the most important . . . [Full text of this article]

Kit Stone, consultant psychiatrist and medical director

¹ Blandford Community Hospital, Blandford Forum, Dorset DT11 7DD

Kit.Stone@dorset-pct.nhs.uk

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Relevant Article

When is a polyclinic not a polyclinic?: Rob Finch
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