Hospitals told to stop wasting millions of appointments by dumping work on GPs

[Northerner]

Guidance to improve how hospitals and primary care work together spells out rules around referrals to secondary care, how hospitals should manage DNAs, discharge summaries and other issues.

GP leaders have said that work dumped on GP practices by hospitals wastes around 15m appointments a year - more than 4% of all consultations provided annually in England.

Outgoing GPC chair Dr Chaand Nagpaul hailed in his speech at this year's LMCs conference 'hard-won contractual levers' inserted into hospital contracts to stop work being transferred unnecessarily to general practice.

http://www.gponline.com/hospitals-t...appointments-dumping-work-gps/article/1438592

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[Bill Stewardson]

Guidance to improve how hospitals and primary care work together spells out rules around referrals to secondary care, how hospitals should manage DNAs, discharge summaries and other issues.

GP leaders have said that work dumped on GP practices by hospitals wastes around 15m appointments a year - more than 4% of all consultations provided annually in England.

Outgoing GPC chair Dr Chaand Nagpaul hailed in his speech at this year's LMCs conference 'hard-won contractual levers' inserted into hospital contracts to stop work being transferred unnecessarily to general practice.

http://www.gponline.com/hospitals-t...appointments-dumping-work-gps/article/1438592

(free registration required)

All symptomatic of the creeping reduction of resources.

 

[Northerner]

All symptomatic of the creeping reduction of resources.

I was catching up on the BBC's 'Hospital' series last night. What is clearly apparent is that the 'efficiency savings' forced on hospitals have introduced considerable inefficiencies - the only increase has been in patients suffering unnecessarily, and staff becoming overworked, stressed and frustrated There is a point at which true inefficiencies have been overcome and further reductions are counter-productive, that point was passed a long time ago. Yes, it's always possible to point to areas where further savings might be made, but the actual resources to implement those changes are no longer available. I think people often forget just how MASSIVE and complicated the NHS is - that it functions as well as it does is truly amazing, and down to so many dedicated people. Years ago I worked for a company which followed an 'Investors in People' programme. The idea was to give support to employees as the most valuable part of any organisation. The current and previous government will speak about investing in infrastructure (like unnecessary HS2) but balk at the notion of investing in people, instead they give them a derisory 1% rise, effectively a pay cut, for their hard work and sacrifice

 

[mikeyB]

The work environment built by "investing in people" was one of the things highlighted in the Nuffield report as a key difference between NHS Scotland and England. That phrase wasn't used in the report, it's a little passé. But valuing employees, and seeking their opinion is.

 

[Pumper_Sue]

I suggested to PALS that to save many thousands of pounds in each hospital that a traffic light system should be on patients records so that offering an 8AM apt to some one that has to travel 90 mins to an apt was not very bright or even practical hence the waste of postage, time and paper would be greatly decreased. PALS thought this was a great idea and duly passed it on to the IT bods who said they had better things to do than waste time reprograming the computers 🙄

 

[mikeyB]

That rather resonates with my experience, Sue. I fear we are forever condemned to phone calls rearranging appointments.

 

[Bill Stewardson]

The work environment built by "investing in people" was one of the things highlighted in the Nuffield report as a key difference between NHS Scotland and England. That phrase wasn't used in the report, it's a little passé. But valuing employees, and seeking their opinion is.

As I once wrote ,

You can throw the stick and kick the dog to fetch it, eventually the dog will bite you.

Or you can throw the stick and have a dog wagging its tail who fetches it quickly. I know which I'd rather have.