Would you believe it?

Upon opening one of the GP rags this morning a headline screamed out at us here at ND Central.

“Patients shun ‘wasteful’ Darzi centres” it read and yet only a short time before another GP rag said “NHS Choices ranks Darzi centres top”. Surely a slight difference of opinion here but look a little deeper at the first story. The GP magazine contacted 95 PCTs (out of 152 in England) and found some interesting facts about how many patients these Darzhole practices had registered.

Remember these practices are organs of the fromer Party Za Nu Labour’s muppet Lord Darzi, the Iraq born Armenian,  Irish trained surgeon who, based on his vast ignorance of general practice, was asked to advise Messrs Brown and Blair on how to reform it. He pulled from his black hole of knowledge of general practice the idea of the Darzhole practice which led to their imposition creation.

We have commented before how they fit into the Soviet market model that is today’s tripartite political model for healthcare but let us now present the findings. Remember too that the Orwellian porcine principle was applied to all PCTs so that all PCT porkies were considered equal and got the same number of Darzhole centres regardless of whether they were over- or under-doctored. (We love true political equality here at ND Central).

The figures are as follows:

12 % have no registered patients

26% have less than 500 patients

35% have less than 1000 patients.

The most damning figure was that on average the cost per practice per year is £ 1.1 million.

Now we can only go on local experience but a practice with a turnover of about £ 1-1.3 million a year normally has a list size of between 10000 - 12500 patients not none, nil points, zero patients on its list.

We will let you do the maths as to cost per registered patient but look in the article about NHS Isle of Wight which has just one registered patient. £ 1.1 million to spend on one patient they are going to live forever!

This might explain the second headline bearing in mind that virtually no-one uses NHS Choices for choosing anything so for them to claim Darzhole centres are ranked top is to be viewed with deep suspicion but just think if you are the only patient would you ever have a problem getting the phone answered, an appointment when you needed it or to see the doctor of your (NHS) choice?

Your call would be highly valued by a Darzi centre and would be jumped upon by staff with nothing to do in contrast to the real world of general practice where 10000+ patients all want the phone answering NOW.

Perhaps we could make a helpful suggestion.

Given that these highly expensive and underused centres are public money going to waste, perhaps every GPs’ surgery in England could give a list of their top one hundred time wasting heartsink patients to their local PCTs with a view to utilizing under utilized Darzhole centres with patients whose needs are clearly not being met by overstretched underfunded normal GP practices.

Such patients could be told that there is a surgery that will see them at any time and they would never wait for an appointment. If they are quick they could in fact be the only patient at that practice but it might mean a bit of a trip but we are sure that given private sector involvement their every need would be catered for and the PCT would pay for their trip to the Isle of Wight (“we could even have a holiday as well as see the doctor!”).

Just a thought for any new commissioning group keen to utilize underused local GP services efficiently and mop up any inefficient capacity issues within the global corporate structure . . .

Priase be to the Party for giving us Lord Darzi and for the way he has transformed general practice (not), improved access to GP services (for a few) and for all of his and the Party’s financial prudence in doing so. Clearly such good value for money and increased equitable access for all patients especially the one on the Isle of Wight?

We dare anyone to say he was wrong . . .