09
Oct 2018
New government review questions length of GP consultations
A government review claims GP appointments need to be longer than ten minutes, so that consultations are not crammed into each day and patients’ illnesses have time to be properly dealt with.
The UK ten minute consultation length is thought to be amongst the shortest in the developed world.
Lead of the review, Dr Nigel Watson, said the proposed changes were included in several areas to be explored to lighten pressures on the NHS. However, he also warned that increasing the length of the consultations would increase difficulties in booking appointments in the first place.
He said “You’ve got fewer quick, easy appointments and more complex ones, meaning the working day is getting longer, the workload you’re coping with is greater – and the prevalence of disease is higher.
“Clinically, GPs are expected to pick up more and more work, and with the focus on improved access, other things are compromised.”
He went on to say that ways must be found for GP partnerships to be more attractive to doctors entering the medical profession.
Currently, GPs are regularly working 12 to 14 hours each day. The report states that this is unsustainable and is contributing to increasing stress levels and wider mental health problems within general practice.
The report also notes “A 10-minute appointment is not a contractual requirement. However, the reality is that longer appointments will result in a reduced number of available appointments offered or the individual has to work longer hours.”
Chair of the Royal College of GPs, Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard, said “Our ageing population means that more patients are inevitably developing more than one long-term condition and requiring multiple medications to manage this, making the standard 10-minute GP appointment increasingly inadequate.
“The RCGP has been saying for several years that GPs want to spend more time with those patients who need it most and we support the request in this report.”
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Posted by Karen Motley, Paralegal, Clinical Negligence Department, Chadwick Lawrence LLP (karenmotley@chadlaw.co.uk), medical negligence lawyers and clinical negligence solicitors in Huddersfield, Leeds, Wakefield and Halifax, West Yorkshire.
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