Carbon footprint of patient journeys

May I add one further aspect to the discussion relating to patients travelling to and from surgeries and its environmental impact1,2 that I have yet to hear included in any public debate — and that is the obvious conflict with the ‘choice’ agenda. We, too, are a practice in a deprived inner-city area with high rates of chronic disease, and yet a significant number of our patients still drive 3, 4, or 5 miles through town to visit the practice. It is not uncommon for patients to ring saying they will be late as they are ‘stuck in traffic’ or be stressed if the doctor is running late and they have only paid for 30 minutes on the meter. Ironically, they will have driven past or close by to at least some seven or eight surgeries on their way in.

We will all be familiar with the disgruntled patient who does not see why they have to change doctors even if they have moved a considerable distance away. Yet government initiatives have been to promote keeping such patients on the list.3 The current patient choice agenda seems to pay little heed to such genuine wider concerns as this study demonstrates; and ignoring them does not make them go away.

• © British Journal of General Practice 2013