Housing letters: the dilemma

[摘要] So often we are told that writing letters for patients is ‘not NHS work’ and therefore we must levy a charge. We are also told that housing letters (letters for the local council regarding council housing) make no difference. Yet an argument can be made that a letter does make a difference — one that perhaps is not easily quantifiable, but one that does validate someone in need, at a time when to be heard is of vital importance to their sense of self-worth.How many of us shift uneasily when charging for a few lines on headed paper? How many of us allow ourselves the possibility that from our vantage point as GPs, we may have had our focus so sharpened by years of walking alongside our patients that we might see the benefit of a letter where bland policy cannot?This poem challenges us to examine the tension between our inbuilt desire to help and the constraints in which we must practise.

[学科分类] 卫生学