News & Developments
HEALTH CARE COMPLAINTS REDUCED
Courtesy of The Tameside Reporter August 16 2007
Out of hours doctors in Tameside have reduced the number of complaints made against them.
Following reports about the rise of serious complaints made against GPs' out of hours care, Tameside and Glossop Primary Care Trust is bucking the trend and has seen the number of complaints drop.
Go-To-Doc took over the out of hours care across Tameside and Glossop in 2005.
During 2005/06 Go-To-Doc revamped their complaints process aligning it with the NHS complaints procedures and also formally recorded and responded to verbal complaints in the same way as written ones.
Historically, only written ones were formally dealt with by the old deputising services.
This has therefore widened the criteria for complaints to include those previously never recorded as such.
Dr Kailash Chand said: "Full time GP partners see more than 100 patients a week face to face, give advice to another 20 on the phone, and on top of this make home visits, see elderly patients in care homes and run clinics."
In 2006/07 the number of complaints reached 0.08 per cent, this year the number of complaints nationally is 0.06 per cent and in the Tameside and Glossop are it has reduced to this.
Dr Chand continued: "Family doctors in Tameside and Glossop are working even harder than they did 14 years ago despite working similar hours. What has changed is the way we work. Intensity has rocketed.
"Patient care that used to routinely take place in a hospital setting - such as diabetic care, cardiac care and asthma care, is now routinely done in general practice.
"It used to be commonplace to be called to a child with uncontrolled asthma, or a patient with heart failure and send them to hospital. Now it's a rare occurrence."
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Dawn Sewards - Integrated Governance Manager
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