EDITORIAL
The inappropriate attender
Correspondence to:
Professor G Hughes, Emergency Department, Royal Adelaide Hospital, North Terrace, Adelaide 5000, Australia; cchdhb@yahoo.com
Accepted 21 April 2008
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
By the time anyone reads this piece, more information and detail may be available than at the time of writing it but, in case you have not heard, the Department of Health’s latest gambit is a proposal to charge general practitioners (GPs) for the treatment cost of some of their patients who visit emergency departments (EDs) and walk-in centres instead of their surgeries; a tariff will be used to cross-charge to GPs when their patients receive basic primary care services elsewhere.
The idea—likely to be in a review by Lord Darzi—appears to stem from the belief that poor access to GP services has driven patients to attend EDs, walk-in centres and minor injury units; as GPs are paid according to the number of patients on their list rather than those they see, primary care trusts are concerned that they pay for some treatments twice.
Chris Ham, Professor of Health Policy
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