BMJ  2004;328 (17 April), doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7445.0-c

Adding nurse practitioners does not reduce the workload of GPs

Nurse practitioners are used as supplements to general practice care, rather than acting as substitutes. Laurant and colleagues (p 927) randomly allocated five nurse practitioners each to four teams—comprising 30 GPs in total—and measured the level of workload before and after adding nurses. After 18 months, doctors in the intervention group, compared to the control group who did not have nurses, had increased the number of contacts with patients by 4.5 a week, especially with patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or asthma. The subjective aspects of their workload, such as satisfaction, time, and cost benefits, stayed the same.

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Relevant Article

Impact of nurse practitioners on workload of general practitioners: randomised controlled trial

Miranda G H Laurant, Rosella P M G Hermens, Jozé C C Braspenning, Bonnie Sibbald, and Richard P T M Grol
BMJ 2004 328: 927. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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