Posted on 09/29/2012 2:12:51 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
A third of primary care trusts(PCTs) have reduced their spending on night and weekend services in the past year, leaving family doctors responsible for areas spanning hundreds of square miles.
In Cornwall there have been occasions when one GP has been providing cover for 535,000 people, while in Mid Essex one doctor is available for 370,000 people between 7pm and 8am.
After getting rid of one of its two doctors, North East Essex has the same cover for its 325,000-strong population.
A survey of 90 PCTs found that 35 had cut their budget for out-of-hours GP care,....
The results, released under Freedom of Information legislation, also revealed that 11 trusts employed only one GP to provide cover at night for between 180,000 and 535,000 people.
....Katherine Murphy, chief executive of The Patients Association, was also unsurprised by the figures.
She said: ‘These stark figures confirm what patients are telling us - it is incredibly difficult to get access to a GP out of hours either to talk by phone or to arrange a home visit.’
....Many trusts have outsourced their out-of-hours GP cover to private firms and it is thought around a quarter of the population is covered by such providers.
A spokesman for Serco, a private firm that provides out-of-hours cover in Cornwall, said there had been only a ‘limited’ number of occasions in the past year when just one GP was on call.
Serco now ensures that at least two GPs are on call at night to cover the county’s 1,316 square miles, he said.
At least five nurses and paramedics are also on duty in cars in the area.
The Department of Health said local NHS groups were obliged to make sure a high standard of care was in place and to take action over any failings.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Marking this!
The future of US Healthcare is bright indeed. We are less than 2 years away from the largest CF in global history.
Is it really that much better in the US? The family practice group I’ve been using for years in a southeastern city of 220,000 population has ended Saturday morning office hours. Twice in the past four weeks I’ve been critically ill on the weekend and told by my primary care practice weekend “hotline” to go to the emergency room of the local hospital. On one occasion it took me 8 hours to see a physicians assistant and have two diagnostic spinal taps (the first was botched). On the second weekend visit it took six hours to see a physician’s assistant and receive a catheter. On neither occasion did I see a licensed physician although both hospital bills i received indicated there was one in attendance. The bill for each visit was $4,500.
I have an individual health insurance policy with a $10,000 annual deductible so there is no way I’d have gone to the ER if the pain and symptoms had not been so bad I could not wait for Monday morning at the primary care office.
While licensed physicians were not to be seen, there were several social workers and Spanish translators available had I needed their services. While waiting several hours to see the PA for treatment, my vitals were checked by a nurse about every 1 1/2 hours. Several times my wife went out to the main nursing station to asked when I would be seen. She said on each occasion there were several nurses and PA’s standing around and talking. There was none of the sense of urgency one sees on television hospital shows. I’d say on both occasions I spent less than 10 minutes with the PA who finally saw me, prescribed some drugs, and sent me home.
These horrendous outcomes of nationalized health care are well-known to our government. That is why it exempted its own members from ObamaCare.
They are instituting this hideous system to rid itself of its opposition. It is an excellent scheme for these cowards because they don’t even have to go to war to do it.
Ummm - I certainly don’t support Obamacare but have you tried to find a GP in the U.S after hours? Can’t be done. It’s either urgent care (which have limited hours also) or the ER.
thats called no healthcare. and it drove the price of healthcare up..
Yep, I've seen it for myself, and at a hospital run by Johns Hopkins Medicine.
2.5 years ago, I suddenly started getting migraine headaches. The first time it started was a Friday night, and I just went to bed for the weekend. The second time was a Monday morning, and by Tuesday the pain and disorientation were so bad that I went to see my Doc. He sent me to the ER for a CT scan because my family has a history of aneurisms.
While I was in the waiting room (6 hours), someone came in saying that his niece had been in an accident, was bleeding bad, and was in his car outside. After he shouted at them for several minutes, an orderly sauntered outside for a look, and then came sprinting back in. Only then, did the ER demonstrate a sense of urgency.
I will shorten the story by saying that the girl did not survive the night. When I told the story to my Doc, he said that it is usually better to wait for an ambulance to pick up an accident victim. That way, the hospital knows the victim has already been triaged by a pro, who in my county is always a Fire Dept. paramedic and sometimes a PA.
Oh, it turned out that I did not have an aneurism, just basilar migraines. Just great. Me, a middle age man, with a migraine that usually affects young women.
Don't worry yourself - once Obamination Care is in effect, they will force a few GPs to be available around the clock to save money. They will also be the only legal avenue for folks to visit as ERs/Urgent Care will require 12 pages of data approved by 7 bureaucrats before one can visit them...it sure must suck if there is a 3,000 person waiting line for one of those after hours GPs...
But at least it’s free!
/sarc
Don’t worry, there will be plenty of cash deals made in the middle of the night for emergency service. Then, of course, patient informants and narcs will soon follow to root out the evil physician exploiters. Similar scenarios will play out in other industries.
The upshot is that we will devolve into a society of snitches, just as our government masters have always wanted. That way, the peasants will be too busy minding their neighbor’s business rather than attacking the root cause of misery which is totalitarian government.
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