tetano
Editor, Senior Moderator
Published 22 March 2010, doi:10.1136/bmj.c1617
Cite this as: BMJ 2010;340:c1617
News
Out of hours services would need to expand in more severe flu pandemic
Tom Nolan
1 London
A lack of capacity in out of hours services means that GPs in England would struggle to cope if a more severe wave of pandemic flu were to occur, speakers said at a pandemic summit at the Royal College of General Practitioners in London on 18 March.
The number of patients contacting out of hours services in Tower Hamlets in London in July 2009 at the height of the H1N1 swine flu pandemic was more than double the number in the previous year. On one day 200 people were waiting to be called back by an out of hours GP.
Meanwhile in Liverpool and Knowlsley the volume of calls to out of hours providers rose by 150% during one week in July. Resources were being stretched by the need for home visits, said Simon Abrams, a GP and medical director of Urgent Health UK, an umbrella group of providers of out of hours services.
He said, "Out of hours services can cope with phone consultations, but as soon as you bring in face to face consultations you get into problems."
.....
full article
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/340/mar22_2/c1617
Cite this as: BMJ 2010;340:c1617
News
Out of hours services would need to expand in more severe flu pandemic
Tom Nolan
1 London
A lack of capacity in out of hours services means that GPs in England would struggle to cope if a more severe wave of pandemic flu were to occur, speakers said at a pandemic summit at the Royal College of General Practitioners in London on 18 March.
The number of patients contacting out of hours services in Tower Hamlets in London in July 2009 at the height of the H1N1 swine flu pandemic was more than double the number in the previous year. On one day 200 people were waiting to be called back by an out of hours GP.
Meanwhile in Liverpool and Knowlsley the volume of calls to out of hours providers rose by 150% during one week in July. Resources were being stretched by the need for home visits, said Simon Abrams, a GP and medical director of Urgent Health UK, an umbrella group of providers of out of hours services.
He said, "Out of hours services can cope with phone consultations, but as soon as you bring in face to face consultations you get into problems."
.....
full article
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/340/mar22_2/c1617