Monday 5 October 2009

Just read our post and . . .


One of the daily grinds that we as GPs do hopefully each day is read our post. This is useful as sometimes it gives us the results of questions we asked when we referred our patients for to a consultant. Often we learn from it sometimes it is funny. Some of it goes straight in the bin especially if it says NICE on it.

Sometimes it just illustrates how bad “socialized medicine” in the UK is at this point in time. These are two “walk in” centre consultations in our trays this morning from 2 different Northernshire towns near by. Both were with a “Specialist Nurse Practitioner” which must be some new über version of the Nurse Prattitioner.

Both had the standard 2 sides of A4 printout perhaps 2 lines of which have any relevance to a GP reading them full of useless bits of information like:

Main spoken language English English speaker Yes
(XaG5t)

Last bit looked a bit Greek to us when we first saw it but onward to the consults:

Case 1

History: has a rash
Examination: red rash on arm
Diagnosis: rash ? cause
Plan: appt made to see own GP re rash

Case 2

History: wants more contraceptive pill
Examination: BP 120/80
Diagnosis: wants more contraceptive pill
Plan: to see own GP for contraceptive pill.

Both of these were from "Darzi" care NHS Walk In centres. No doubt cost more than a normal GP consultation and delivered nothing useful to anyone. A good use of tax payers’ hard earned cash?

Praise be to the Party for Specialist Nurse Practitioners. So specialized they can do nothing useful. Still afternoon surgery to come things can only get better?

3 comments:

GrumpyRN said...

Nurse Prattitioner? Poor spelling or an attempt at whimsy? Sad either way.

Isn't it strange that hospital based doctors see the value of nurse practitioners but GP's hate us.

"No doubt cost more than a normal GP consultation and delivered nothing useful to anyone. A good use of tax payers’ hard earned cash?" - Shall we discuss the GP's who have sent me patients recently;

1) Wound to hand ? requires plastics - no it didn't it required steristrips.

2) Ankle injury 3 weeks ago, fully weight bearing no limp no swelling no bruising ?# - Have you heard of the Ottawa ankle rules? Discharged with analgesia advice.

This type of nurse baiting has a long history on your fellow GP blog 'NHS Blog Doctor' and really it is childish and shows a complete ignorance of the modern NHS.

As for the letters you received I would suggest that the information on it has more to do with diversity and statistical data than medical data and the nurse would not have input half of it and would be limited by a computer system which is basically crap.

the a&e charge nurse said...

Nothing seems to divide medics quite like the quack issue - some docs see us as the devil incarnate while, as grumpy points out, some consultants find us to be quite useful.

So do we try and put the genie back in the bottle (unlikely given quack developments in countries like the USA & Oz)?

Or do we accept that there is poor practice in the NHS and it is unfair to discriminate against quacks while turning a blind eye to failings associated with non-quacks?

Anonymous said...

I am an Nurse Prattitioner/Quacktitioner, whatever you feel like cslling me today. Recently seen a pt with BM of 24.2 and a chest infection. She is a NIDDM. Started her on antibiotics and adjusted her Diabetic meds. Asked the GP to review - Said he though her problems were due to anxiety. Saw her again myself - Pneumonia - needed admitting to hospital - in there for 2 weeks. Not so much a General Practitioner but a complete and utter twat!