I enjoyed the article about how to combat urgent care pressures by improving collaboration between primary and secondary care physicians.
You state that educational days for GPs to spend time in the acute admission unit have been of mutual benefit. I am wondering whether you have considered a similar educational day for acute consultants to spend time in general practice. Perhaps this would provide insight into the reality of community care, promote a more positive relationship and encourage shared ideas about how cooperation can be improved.
The September 2013 Future Hospital Commission report from the Royal College of Physicians proposes improved integration of acute, general, internal, and community doctors. In time this should mean that community placements become a key part of core medical and medical registrar training; certainly acute medical placements already feature in the majority of general practice training programmes. Broad-based training programmes have also been implemented in several deaneries aiming to provide ‘specialist generalist’ doctors. Hopefully these attempts to gain a common understanding of our specialties will help to provide a more effective service to our patients.
- © British Journal of General Practice 2014
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