A world without general practice

[摘要] The views from consulting rooms in the UKand Australia are very similar. General practiceis in crisis. Grossly underfunded, stretcheda long way beyond capacity, patient carebecoming more complex, patients finding itharder to see a GP, morale collapsing, and,with it, the collapse of a future GP workforce.Policy is made for short-term solutionswithout understanding the fundamental roleof GPs.What’s at stake here? Is it possible that wecould lose general practice, either in the UK orin Australia? What would it look like if we did?Many of the solutions proposed in Australiaare based on asking other health professionalsto do the job of a GP — pharmacists and nursesmostly. While I wouldn’t mind this sort oftask substitution in a well-integrated team,multidisciplinary team care in Australia isbased mostly on individual goodwill ratherthan systemic integration. The plans on offerseem to be based on the reasoning thatGPs are expensive, but what they seem todo — write referral letters, certificates, andprescriptions — is dead simple.

[学科分类] 卫生学