Re: Should the NHS work at weekends as it does in the week? Yes
With a few exceptions, movement up the chain of command seems to be directly proportional to detachment from reality which I guess corresponds to attachment to politicians. Bruce Keogh poses the question as to what sort of weekend a young woman discovering a breast lump on Friday afternoon would have. Might I suggest she could have a very constructive one developing her coping skills! She could speak to her family and friends. She could do some research into the probability of this being cancer and if all else fails and she is lucky enough to be a patient of our practice she could ring one of the partners who will be doing an emergency surgery on Saturday morning as we have been for 25 years. As consortia we are trying to reduce activity in secondary care and move it to primary care. The natural extension of this is devolving responsibility to patients and learned dependency as suggested by Bruce Keogh is not the answer
Rapid Response:
Re: Should the NHS work at weekends as it does in the week? Yes
With a few exceptions, movement up the chain of command seems to be directly proportional to detachment from reality which I guess corresponds to attachment to politicians. Bruce Keogh poses the question as to what sort of weekend a young woman discovering a breast lump on Friday afternoon would have. Might I suggest she could have a very constructive one developing her coping skills! She could speak to her family and friends. She could do some research into the probability of this being cancer and if all else fails and she is lucky enough to be a patient of our practice she could ring one of the partners who will be doing an emergency surgery on Saturday morning as we have been for 25 years. As consortia we are trying to reduce activity in secondary care and move it to primary care. The natural extension of this is devolving responsibility to patients and learned dependency as suggested by Bruce Keogh is not the answer
Ewan Hamnett General Practicioner
ewan.hamnett@nhs.net
Competing interests: No competing interests