|
Note
Much of this section is culled from named media sources and
CountryDoctor cannot be held responsible for the accuracy or claims made
in the source material.
______________________________________________________________
15 December, 2000
BSE Testing
The current "BSE rapid tests" of herds now being used
throughout the EU cannot provide the needed protection to the community
against the disease, it is claimed. There is no information
abut the capacity of the tests to detect the BSE prions before the onset
of the disease. nor can the tests be applied to other
species.. The rapid tests do not cover the detection of
infected risk material in final meat products.
12 December, 2000
Improved rural GP services
John Prescott has announced a capital investment of £100million
through the NHS Plan to provide more than 100 one-stop primary care
centres or mobile service units in rural areas. The units
will provide video and tele-links to hospitals and specialists as well
as local direct booking of OP appointments and operations - said Mr
Prescott. Consultants will work alongside GP specialists in
the units - and manna will fall from heaven.
Ambulance response time
The target for rural areas from March next year will be 8 minutes
for a Category A, life threatening condition. Funding will be
found for additional emergency ambulance services were population
density is low.
30 November, 2000
Rural decline & Mr Prescott
Village shops, garages and pubs will be able to apply for a
50% cut in rates as part of the government's Rural White
Paper. Apart from the decline in farming other problems
include the closure of 100 village post offices a year, one school a
fortnight and 4000 village shops in 20 years.
Shops will be encouraged to provide banking, internet access, pensions,
benefits, prescriptions (beware, dispensing doctor, your
GMS service may be forcibly reduced), health and other services.
26 November, 2000
Rural Speed Limits to be cut to 20mph
Councils will be given discretion to reduce speed limits to 20mph in
rural areas where, it has been found, 70% of fatal accidents
occur. Accidents are largely caused by people "bombing"
down what they expect to be deserted narrow rural roads.
Foxhunting ban
The government's foxhunting bill if it becomes law in the
anticipated form will make criminals out of 250,000 country-dwelling
people. It is believed that the "babes" will toe the
party line and vote for it.
21 November, 2000
New mobile phone service
Norweb has produced a new mobile telephone service, Assign
which allows mobile health workers to "put applications usually
found in offices in their pockets". These include addresses,
appointments, task lists and e-mail using their WAP mobile phones.
Norweb say it could save doctors and nurses hours of wasted time.
18 November, 2000
Rural Action zone
Lincolnshire's Rural Action zone offers a national model to
government for addressing rural health and social exclusion issues in a
positive way. The key indicators of deprivation miss the
real needs of rural areas by failing to identify key issues. RAZ
creates a truly integrated programme tackling all the issues in
"joined up government". Information from Bill Hamilton
0207 255 1100.
Countryside Agency
In its first 9 months the Local Heritage Initiative (LHI) has
awarded more than £1 million in grants to help 99 English Communities
care for their local heritage. The projects include exploring a
Devon fort, studying a monastic well in Barnsley and interpreting the
history of a wooded river valley in Northumberland. The scheme
will run for 10 years so there is plenty of time for interested people
to seek help and an application form through the LHI Information Line,
0870 90000 401
Hairdos for Hedges
Dave Roberts, the National Trust Gardener in Charge at Rufford Old
Hall, Lancashire has six volunteers hedging, mowing, weeding, staking,
clipping and shaping. He creates squirrel shapes from yews and
spirals from box hedges. The NT has a more than 650 volunteers
throughout their extensive properties and 200 gardens. Their
efforts are being highlighted in the build up to National Trust Gardens
Year 2001. Information on volunteering from: 0870 458 4000.
25 October, 2000
Health & Safety Executive Annual Report, 1999-2000
On the subject of pesticides a farmer was convicted on 11 counts
involving widespread misuse. Crop pickers were exposed to a
substance hazardous to health; an insecticide was applied to sweetcorn
for human consumption; and sprayers were not adequately protected.
He was fined £220,000 plus £16,862 costs.
Another farmer was
prosecuted under the H & S at Work Act, 1974 following the fatal
accident of an employee who was struck by the rotating bars of a hay
tedder. A miscellany of faults was found. The farmer was
fined £1,250.
Hedgerows
Devon farmers are playing an important part in the revival and
preservation of the county's hedgerows. Throughout the UK
hedges have been ripped out by the thousand of miles in the chase for
increased production. Prairie fields have become the norm in
many parts of the country to the enormous detriment of the environment,
flora, fauna and inhabitants. However, conservation bodies
and farming organisations in the West Country are attempting to stop the
decline. There is now even a Devon Hedge Promotion Officer
who attempts to replace the hedge-weakening temptation of mechanical
cutting and trimming with the ancient craft of hedge-laying.
Sheep worrying
24,000 sheep are killed and injured by out-of-control dogs each
year. Others are said to be attacked by wild members of the
large cat family, pumas etc.
16 October, 2000 - Sunday
Telegraph.
Organo-phosphate sheep dip
A cause of great ill-health (See Education) OPs are the subject of
hundreds of compensation cases by sick farmers. In 1999 the
farmers were ordered by the High Court to join all the cases into one
group action. Millions of pounds were spent preparing the
cases and the Countess of Mar stepped in to launch a debate on the
subject in the Lords last summer.
However, suddenly,
last Thursday the farmers were told by their lawyers that the case was
being abandoned and legal aid was being withdrawn because counsel had
decided that there was less than a 50% chance of success.
Sick farmers had until
4pm on Friday, 13th October to agree to sign a letter disclaiming all
further action otherwise they would personally become liable for
£10million costs - including all the defendants' costs.
Families sue Blair
over fuel taxes (Sunday Mail)
Six rural families have turned to the new Human Rights Act to sue
the government for taxing fuel beyond their means. The group
includes pensioners, farmers and the disabled who all depend on their
cars due to lack of public transport in their area. A writ will be launched in the High Court this week with the support of the
fuel tax lobby. The case is about the right of government to tax
in this discriminatory way.
Isolated rural GPs
The British Association of Immediate Care Schemes (BASICS) has been
given £306,000 to train more GP volunteers in dealing with emergency
treatment at major accidents - in Scotland.
7 October,
2000
The Great Horncastle Flood
I wonder how many will recall this as the 40th anniversary of the
great flood in Horncastle, Lincs? Between noon and 6pm no
less than 7.24 inches of rain fell on the town, most between 2.30
and 4pm. It seems that this was 9 months rain in an hour and
a half! No wonder the High Street resembled the
Colorado River with cars and household belongings being swept away as
the equivalent of £1.3million of damage was caused. Miraculously
only one person lost his life.
2 October,
2000
Labour's Intended motoring taxes
Speed cameras - (2003) zero tolerance - £1000 max. fines
Graduated Vehicle Excise Duty from March 2001: up to £1000/year
on executive cars
Road Pricing tolls: (2003) £5+ to enter towns
The £5 gallon: £4 of it is tax
Workplace Parking Levies: where councils decide, up to £2,000.
(2003)
Parking Meter & off-road parking charges: (2003-6)
Motorway Tolls: (2006-10) - 6p per mile.
All
these will affect rural people who have to travel to towns to
work. It is estimated that new road taxes could treble the
cost of motoring in 10 years.
27
September, 2000
CUMBRIAN
VILLAGE RECEIVES BT PAGERS FOR FIRST AID VOLUNTEERS
The village of
Burton-in-Kendal in Cumbria has received a heart defibrillator from the
British Heart Foundation and will now be able to treat emergencies in
the village while waiting for assistance from the ambulance service. BT
Paging has donated alpha 747i pagers to the twenty volunteers so they
can be notified as soon as they are needed. The volunteers are being
trained by the Cumbria Ambulance Service on how to use the defibrillator
equipment.
The pagers have a group number facility, which means
one message can be sent to all the pagers simultaneously. This prevents
any risk of delay in the call for help. The volunteers are being co-ordinated
by Sue Hargreaves, who decided to set up the voluntary service,
Heartwatch.
Mrs Hargreaves said, "We are not near a hospital
and we wanted to be able to carry out emergency procedures while waiting
for assistance to arrive. The pagers from BT ensure all volunteers can
be easily contacted at the same time. We can respond quickly when needed
and responsibility does not just rest with one person’
Nicola Barnes communications manager from BT Paging
said, "Pagers are useful for all emergency services, including the
voluntary services such as mountain rescue and lifeboats, because they
are reliable and easy to use. The village of Burton-in-Kendal will find
them useful in the event of an emergency. We hope they will not have to
use them very often.
19 September, 2000
Cardiac Rehabilitation
Less than half the 150,000 people who suffer an MI receive any
cardiac rehabilitation (CR) and rural patients are amongst the most
deprived. Most patients are suitable for CR and programmes
need to be individually based rather than in rigid courses. A
quarter of patients will be anxious but should be encouraged to take
moderate, regular exercise building up to 30 minutes, five times a
week. 300 such programmes may be found on www.cardiacrehabilitation.org.uk.
Courses must include attention to medication, lifestyle changes,
psychological adjustment and stress management.
5
September, 2000
Direction
of Labour
Having
already forced all GPs into Primary Care Groups, the government, in a move
very reminiscent of the Stalinist era in Soviet Russia, is
seeking to force single-handed doctors into tightly
controlled PMS contracts with the NHS. This fairly typical Blairite
action, set out in Milburn's "NHS Plan", 8.11, will affect
many rural practices. It must be resisted both by patients
and medical groups.
15 August, 2000
Local Heritage
Initiative (LHI) Grants
The Countryside Agency has announced that from September 1st new
applications for grants may be submitted to the LHI by local
communities, groups and societies. Funds are provided by the
Heritage Lottery Fund (£8 million) and the Nationwide Building Society
(£1 million). The grants (from £3,000 - £15,000) are to
encourage communities to take practical action to care for local
heritage.
Civic Societies,
Community Associations, Parish & Parochial Councils,
Garden/Allotment Societies, Conservation volunteers etc etc are already
being funded to take oral history accounts, survey hedgerows, houses,
archeology etc etc.
Details and
application forms from LHI 01226 719019 or www.lhi.org.uk
11
August, 2000
Farming
& Health go Hand in Hand
A special agriculture and health forum, recently held at the Royal
Welsh Showground, was aimed to explore the potential for closer working
between the two sectors in Wales. Professor Kevin Morgan of
Cardiff University said; "the agri-food industry needs to think
more creatively about what constitutes good food - food we can
trust". Issues discussed included the provision of milk in
Primary School, educating children about food and hospital purchasing
methods etc.
10 August, 2000
Country living bad for health
With resounding self-interest and partiality the pharmacist adviser
to Suffolk Health Authority has declared that country living may be bad
for patients' health because there are no pharmacies.
So, predictably,
despite the crawling appeasement to pharmacy of the DDA Ltd and GPC, the
attacks go on. As discussed elsewhere, click
here,
pharmacists will not be content until they have achieved total
dispensing and the total elimination of dispensing by doctors.
Out-of-date
medicines
Millions of Britons could be putting their health at risk by taking
out-of-date medicines. 1 in 4 may have medicines at
home past its use-by date. In addition 9 out of 10 people believe
they are able to cope with minor accidents and illnesses - and are
not. Norwich Union Healthcare has produced a Family Pharmacy
guide. For a free copy call 0800 056 3204.
9 July, 2000
Daily
Mail: "Nurses pay to work"
Rural District nurses are being heavily taxed to actually do their
jobs! The rise in petrol tax without a corresponding
increase in the reimbursed mileage rate means that district nurses are
out of pocket and many are seriously having to think about leaving their
jobs. Taxes in the UK account for almost 80% of the price of each
gallon of petrol. The AA estimates that the Department of Health's
mileage rate of 39p/mile is at least 14p/mile too little. It is
intended to cover fuel, insurance and depreciation. The Royal
College of Nursing calculates that Britain's district and community
nurses and midwives are each £700/year out of pocket. The
government refuses to act to help.
8 July,
2000
Another
farming crisis
The depressed state of the industry may not be the only reason
farming patients or their wives are depressed especially when family
breakup is happening. That is a good enough reason alone but
the future of the entire farm is being brought into
question. A divorced farmer's wife, Pamela White, is
presently taking a case through the House of Lords asking for half her
husbands £4.5million dairy farm rather than the £900,000 already
settled. The grounds being that she was equally
responsible for the success of the business.
If she
is successful and this becomes the pattern then many smaller farms may
well need to be sold to settle the wife's share. The
alternative, to raise a mortgage on the remainder to buy the wife out,
is not possible in many cases because the farm may already be deeply in
debt to the bank.
It is
now becoming quite usual for elderly parents to look suspiciously at
potential daughters-in-law and not to transfer the farm, which they have
worked all their lives to build up, to their sons - for fear of it being
lost to a divorcing daughter-in-law.
Doctors
should look carefully into all the causes of depression in farming
patients/
1 July,
2000
Village
Post Offices & shops
Quite
rightly there is a campaign to keep village shops and post offices open
- and the WI is in the forefront of it. But they are not
alone. Daventry District Council (Northants) over the past
two years has quietly being giving upgrade grants under the Council's
Village Shop Development Scheme. So far nine rural stores have
benefited. To be eligible shops must be the sole outlet for a
range of groceries in a village of less than 3,000
population. The grant is worth up to £5,000.
The
same council is considering setting up a local farmers' market to allow
shoppers to buy local produce such as fruit, vegetables, eggs, meat and
flowers on a monthly basis.
Health
& Safety Executive and open farms
The HSE has
produced revised guidance for farmers and teachers on avoiding
ill-health at open farms. The advice on hand-washing facilities
has been strengthened and on the level for the supervision of young
children. There was little support for a ban on under-5s
visiting open farms.
The
risk of infection with such organisms as E Coli 0157 comes mainly from
contact with the animals or their faeces and the failure to wash hands
afterwards.
The
guidance suggests 1:1 supervision by an adult for children under 12
months; !:2 between 1 and two years; and gradually increasing up to 1:8
for children between 5 and 8. In addition eating areas
should be well separated from animal areas; have good washing
facilities. There should also be clear information on the risks
and avoidance factors. The importance of hand-washing must be
stressed.
The
WI and Number 10
Last summer, representatives from Blair's office met the WI and
suggested he might like to attend an event, particularly its triannual
Wembley Arena meeting. Briefings were held with Blair aides
on the issues the WI felt he should be aware of, such as the resolutions
for debate. It was made clear that the WI was not
party-political. The night before the meeting number 10 made
it clear through the newswires that Blair would be making a political
speech after all. The WI were astounded that it was to be on their
platform and that they had not had a prior copy of the speech. (PR
Week 30 June, 2000)
The
response of the WI to the Blair speech is well noted
elsewhere. The PM's spokespeople virtually accused the WI of
lying.
24 June, 2000
MELPHALAN error - again
According to a letter in a recent Pharmaceutical
Journal two more colleagues have mistakenly represcribed melphalan.
One error was detected by the patient before being dispensed but the
second was dispensed by a chemist. Fortunately the patient queried
it with the hospital. Both could have been fatal. For
a dispensing/prescribing protocol click here.
20
June, 2000
Dr Mary Jo
I'Anson of Allendale, Northumberland is taking part in a mental
health screening of local farmers. She is looking for depression
amongst livestock farmers during local sales. Not
surprisingly, with farming in its present state, she found that 67% had
clinical anxiety and 37% had clinical depression.
There is a place in many cases, she believes for the intervention of
other "Help" groups. A good start, we
believe, would be Farm Crisis Network (07002 326326), as
mentioned in this column on 11 June, 2000.
11 June,
2000
Northamptonshire
WI News
The WI Federation has announced a new Associated Countrywomen of the
World (ACWW) project to run over two years. Funds are being
raised by branches to provide clean, safe drinking water the Chennai,
India. It will also provide for the educational needs of
girls from poor families. Northamptonshire hopes to raise £2,000
- what about your local branch? Can you help?
Home
& Country magazine, June, 2000
The WI is not just about jam & Jerusalem. Motions down for
debate at Blair's ill-fated conference included discussions on:
Rural post offices.
The WI is anxious lest the government's intention to pay benefits
directly into bank accounts should close 18,500 post offices as they gain
40% of their income from the Benefits Agency.
Funding childrens' hospices. 20,000 UK
children have life-limiting diseases. Few hospices receive any
help from government funds whereas 25% of adult hospices are run by the
NHS and the remaining receive 30% of funding from the state.
Stroke sufferers. A far higher standard of
care is called for as strokes are the biggest single killer and cause of
severe disability. 60,000 die and 300,000 have stroke-related
disability.
Farm Crisis Network
How many GPs are aware of this group, yet how many rural doctors
have stressed farmers on their lists? Voluntary members of
the network are able to respond quickly and confidentially to calls for
help. Helpline number: 07002 326326. Address, FCN,
38 de Montfort Street, Leicester, LE1 7GP.
Rural Stress
Information Network
Initially set up to respond to the high levels of stress and suicide
in farming it has now been widened to take in the whole rural
community. Details: RSIN, Arthur Rank centre,
Stoneleigh Park, Warks, CV8 2LZ
7 June, 2000
The motto round all four sides reads
"Extraordinary women". How true !
WI Conference
Having invited himself to speak at the WI Conference today and
having promised that the speech would not be political the Prime
Minister in an act of gross discourtesy to the WI abused their
trust. Afterwards members of the WI got up a petition to censure
the Prime Minister. At least 50% of the meeting signed the
petition which was later presented to Number 10.
Throughout his carefully crafted
speech the Prime Minister was slow-handclapped and heckled both for the
content and for using the occasion to score political points. Only
at the Chairman's personal request was he heard out.
The speech was full of the royal
"we's" and the seemingly psychotic "forces of
conservatism" which continually call Mr Blair to action. The
Prime Minister's delusions of grandeur had been earlier exhibited when
he up-staged the Queen at the Jubilee walkabout a couple of years ago.
The standing in rural areas of
neither Blair nor government will have been enhanced by today's
performance. However, the fully-paid up members of the Blair
Broadcasting Corporation, Naughtie & Co, on R4s "Today"
the following morning closed ranks, exhaustively defended Blair,
analysed the mistake and suggested remedies without permitting any input
from the Opposition. Instead, in a second bite of the cherry
Naughtie wheeled out the Home Secretary and in a soft interview allowed
him to put the Blair case.
In the meantime, we have a Prime
Minister who is both discourteous and, apparently, a liar. I
prefer to believe the Chairman and 10,000 members of the WI who say that
he invited himself to speak.
3 June, 2000
Every village to have a bobby - at least, a part time one is another
whizz-bang vote-seeking idea from Mr Blair. Quite where he
thinks they will all come from, I don't know but there's difficulty
enough recruiting full-time, full-paid police. The current force
is 2,300 lower than in 1997 and these village "retained"
officers will, of course, not even be paid the same rate as full
officers and they'll be on duty 24 hours a day. However, from
Blair's point of view this has the virtue of being another long-term
promise which obviously can't be redeemed until after the next general
election "So, re-elect me and the gold is yours".
DOCTOR, w/ending 1 June, 2000
According to stats presented by
DOCTOR the average dispensing practice (not average dispensing doctor,
please note) earned £17,545 higher profit than other
practices. It was not made clear that this is the total
remuneration for all the responsibility and effort of providing
pharmaceutical services to their patients in addition to their
routine GP service. Find me a similar sized group of
pharmacists who will provide a service for that income yet the
dispensing doctors' responsibility is no less. In short,
dispensing doctors are carrying out two vital NHS tasks and are worthy
of two incomes.
Daily Telegraph: 27
May, 2000
Villages on the net,
UKVillages is the
work of Rupert Dick, an IT consultant and amateur actor from
Cambridgeshire. He was determined to solve the problem of clashing
dates for his village's events. So, he set up a web site which
everybody could access. Very rapidly the site grew and
currently 8,300 communities in fifteen counties were linked under this
electronic noticeboard. By August every county in England,
Scotland and Wales will have its own network of sites.
The plan is for all
28,000 communities, from villages to suburbs, to have their own Home
Page to which local businesses and people can contribute. Each
site will need a sponsor who will pay a fee of £500 to UKVillages, and
some advertising - or even national advertising. The
worry is that with growth will be lost the delightful amateur ambience
of present sites.
Endless
possibilities for country practices seem to rise here.
UKVillages may be
accessed through our LINKS page.
Daily
Telegraph: 18 May, 2000
Halt city
migration, MPs call
An all-party committee of MPs says people must be stopped from
moving from cities to rural areas and new housing should only be built
for the needs of local people.. The building of executive housing
in villages is unacceptable. A number of recommendations were made
to revive rural shops and post offices. The government
should prevent the closure of POs and promise to ensure that benefits
could be paid through them. National chains could sell
products through village stores and supermarkets could use them as
internet drop-off points. There should be a speed limit of
30mph in all villages; agricultural subsidies should be switched to
green farming or local development schemes when the CAP allows it; and
the right to buy scheme should not apply to settlements of less than
5000.
Farmers
accidentally sow 33,000 acres of GM
33,000 acres of oil-seed rape were sown by up to 600 farms before it
was realised that the seed was contaminated by Canadian GM
seed. Oil from the seed has already entered the food-chain
where it is used for cooking, ice-cream, margarine and
chocolate. It is also used in cattle feed and the pollen
will have been spread to contaminate untold other crops by bee
pollination. Honey has recently been found to contain GM
contamination. The government was aware of this one month
before making it public. See POLITICS.
Daily
Telegraph: 13.5.2000
Rare pig disease
kills farmworker
A 30 year old farmworker died following an infection with strep.
suis recently. The infection has only previously
been linked with 3 human deaths. It is spread through the
breath of pigs but horses and cats may also be affected. The
patient had previously had a splenectomy following an RTA and initially
complained of chest pains.
The HSE and NFU are now alerting farmworkers to the danger of what is a
very rare disease.
Pulse: 13.5.00
Open all hours (see
POLITICS)
A recent survey shows
that most GP surgeries are already fulfilling the Blair vision of
flexible opening hours. Two rural doctors were featured in the item. Dr
Mark Goodwin of Glyncorrwg felt that opening until 6.30pm was reasonable
but opening until 10pm was "just nonsense. In rural areas
there is not the demand for this". Dr David Roberts (Great
Staughton, Cambs) said that his workload has gone up by 20% and nurse
workload by 40% and that his "personal development plan includes me
having time with my kids. The only way we can deal with the extra
workload is to bring another doctor on board.. Mr Blair says no
money without modernisation - I say no modernisation without
money".
DOCTOR:
11.5.2000
Scots GPs given
£6m over 3 years to share by the Scottish Parliament.
Dr James Douglas, Fort William, is the Remote and Rural Areas
Resource Initiative project manager. He is asking GPs to make
serious, well-founded bids saying what they would do with it.
The Initiative is intended to develop health and health professionals
in isolated area
Anyone working in primary or secondary care can bid.
3 categories: service delivery; education and training; and research.
An application form must be sent in.
Bids should give evidence that the projects are workable and sustainable
beyond the 3 years
Forms from:
Diane Fraser, RARARI, Tweedale Buildings, High Street, Fort William,
PH33 6EU 01379 704217
Evening
Standard: 10.5.2000
According to a poll
more than half of Britons think Labour is misjudging the countryside
crisis. Twice as many think that rural life has worsened
under Labour than think it has improved. Poll of 1000
commissioned by Country Life and R4 "Today".
The Green Party,
Press release: 9.5.2000
Breathing Difficulties
multiply 5-fold when oil-seed rape flowers according to research
carried out by the Greens and one practice in Oxfordshire. Dr
Caroline Lucas is calling for a review of the subsidies for the crop
which have caused an enormous explosion in the growth of oil-seed
rape. Her report draws on medical evidence from studies in the UK
and abroad which point to both a lack of detailed knowledge of the link
between the crop and ill health, and the reasons for it.
Information from Dr Lucas on 0207 407 6281
Daily
Telegraph: 6.5.2000
Weedkillers may
double the risk of Parkinson's
Pesticides and
weedkillers in the home and garden may double the risk of developing
Parkinson's according to research at Stanford University,
Ca. Use of pesticides in the home carried the greatest
risk. Other factors such as the individual's genetic
susceptibility may also play a part. No specific
guidelines can be given until after further research.
D.Telegraph, 5.5.2000
Country life "can increase
death risk from cancer"
Researchers claim country dwellers
are 4 times more likely to die of cancer before diagnosis. Country
women were three times more likely to die of cancer than urban according
to Aberdeen University's study of 60,000 cancer sufferers. (Brit. Journ.
Cancer).
Bowel cancer, twice as likely;
stomach cancer 4 times. Prostate, the same likelihood.
No differences for prostate cancer. The definition of
rurality is being more than 24 miles from a cancer centre whereas urban
dwellers live within 3 miles of one.
Private Eye: 5.5.2000
"Down on the Farm"
In the 5 years to 1999 the number employed in farming dropped by 1/5
to 400,000 according to MAFF.
Last year 22,000 farmers left the land and MAFF anticipates 100,000 will
leave in the next 5 years.
This gives some insight into the crisis and the causes for depression
amongst farmers and their families
Home & Country, February
2000
18 April, 2000
Increase in rural doctors' fees
SEMA Group, contracted to the
Benefits Agency to examine people who claim Social Security Benefit, will
be increasing their fee per domiciliary visit by more than 25% in some
areas. It is intended to encourage more rural doctors
to commit time to this project.
The fee for DLA/AA will be
increased from £47 to £60.
Comment: Although a
welcome increase it by no means recognises the skill and responsibility
of the doctor. It should be compared with the call-out fee
for a plumber/electrician etc.
March 2000
BMA News Review
Dr Paul Vincent of
Chester le Street, Co Durham posed an interesting question in
"Letters". How should patients get their medicines
out-of-hours in his co-op area when there's only one open chemist and
that's in Gateshead? As he said, patients expect the doctor to
supply them but doctors have to scrounge them from patients or use
starter packs - or buy them. When a non-dispensing doctor
buys drugs to give to out-of-hours patients he is never reimbursed
precisely but only very retrospectively in the "expenses" part
of his remuneration. That being so he may lose money.
Dr Vincent
suggested that hospital pharmacies might develop a community arm to
dispense GP scripts; or allow all on-call doctors to dispense.
What a good idea - and why not allow all doctors to dispense all the
time? A third suggestion, which he thought was a non-starter
was to open pharmacies near on-call centres, but he thought the
difficulty in getting pharmacists would be insurmountable.
If chemists are not
prepared to do the job properly, when it's needed, one wonders why they
so vociferously oppose doctors who will provide the service at all
hours.
|
