Hi
@ColinS, From perspective of a patient with diabetes over the past 52 years, not as professional advice or opinion:
This medical issue-limited consultation nonsense is about money-making efficiency and fails to cater for the basic premise of providing appropriate healthcare.
It has been rife in Australia as well, where it is called
6 minute medicine. The idea being that the doctor can charge a 'normal' consultation fee for a consult lasting > 5 and < 15 minutes. So the idea of just getting above the 5 minute barrier increases the number of patient's seen per hour.
In Britain the charging system etc is different and it may be getting through more patients per day provides a better return for the practice in NHS money input - just guessing.
The one problem per consult doctors fail the code of conduct set down by the GMC.
If you think about it most people have more than one issue to discuss with their doctor and often will put forward the least concerning issue first, as a 'lead in' to the more worrying problem. They get 'cut off at the knees'.
Diabetics for example can have multiple problems.
Do you have to see the doctor 3 times, if you can get appointments close enough together, to first deal with a leg ulcer, then later to look at why BSLs are up and third to have BP checked and script for medication renewed?
Fragmented care is the result!!
Please do not give in to this nonsense, I have reported doctors I have seen who try to pull this stunt.
These doctors could improve efficiency in other ways, say, by having the practice nurses seeing patients with the less complex troubles, having nurses checking patient's weight, BP, doing the urine testing, some are trained and exceptional in providing Pap smear tests, other tests and advice, education etc. What is the point of a doctor prescribing a glucose meter plus strips if he/she or the practice nurse do not show the patient how to operate the device and when, and what the acceptable readings are?
No different to prescribing medication and detailing the taking of the medication, whether taken with food or not, and what the side-effects are. My daughter was prescribed thyroxine for under-active thyroid and the doctor failed to inform my wife who attended the consultation with her that thyroxine should not be taken with food.
And this 'new wave' of one problem-one visit nonsense fails to recognise that computer systems have helped increase efficiency anyway.
There are guidelines for GPs for example about what a consultation with a person with diabetes, asthma etc should cover.
And a doctor saying to me that he/she only has time to take a history and not examine me is NOT ON. That is half-baked medicine !!
On the patient's responsibility side: I make sure I have checked what scripts I need and have a list ready, I also make a list of the issues I wish to discuss and questions I have about say, medication and possible side-effects. I also try to write down any questions I have and history of any symptoms etc I wish to mention.
