Nigel Edwards (nedwards_1) on Twitter

Tweet

Pin It

d nedwards_1 Thank you for the ticking off! The reality I refer to is the consulting room where I spend nearly all my time. IMHO, health service management should make my life easier not harder. The sole reason that health service management exists is the presence of Doctors. Everything about healthcare has evolved to bring doctors into line especially with the managed healthcare systems that have evolved. Without doctors healthcare is nothing. Even so, please point me to sources to improve my understanding of the larger picture. In short, healthcare professionals need to be freed up to deliver healthcare, not overburdened with ticking boxes and form filling. Finally, the competition issue is spurious. In Australia rural healthcare centres work on a hub and spoke model because the centres of excellence are so far away. The model of organisation is based on the premise that a unified accounting system improves financial management and then the imaging and pathology systems are folded into that architecture with the clinical guidelines/referral pathways following. An example of 'following the money' as a recipe for success. So successful in fact that this model is being repeated for the higher education system in Australia. Here in the UK we are blinded by the proximity of everything. To my mind, a more honest assessment of the available skill set in district general hospitals is needed to better prepare for the healthcare needs of a district. More collapboration, and less competition, between nearby hospitals (similar to the cancer network model) may prove more efficient than the current system for most conditions. GPs are NOT physicians. We cannot be expected to deliver the level of assessment a specialist can in the time available for each patient. It is not fair on the patient, and certainly not fair to the GPs.