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Can you say professional protectionism?

Doctors have launched a campaign to curb the use of unregulated assistants being deployed as a “short-term fix” to plug gaps in the NHS workforce.

Medics say that the health service is turning more and more to “associate” practitioners because they are much quicker and cheaper to train.

They have warned patients, often unaware when they are seen by such staff, that they are not being treated by a qualified doctor.

Friedman on hte AMA is a good guide to what’s happening here.

15 thoughts on “Can you say professional protectionism?”

  1. I’m not sure that they can be any worse than the shower of twats who claim to be doctors in my end of the country.

  2. They will probably speak and understand English better, an extreme concern for many elderly people trying to use the present day nhs.

  3. Only a tiny percentage of the population think trans women are women but a shedload choose to ignore the evidence of their own lying eyes and still believe that this particular Lada is superior to a Rolls Royce.

  4. “Emily Chesterton died last November after she was misdiagnosed by a physician associate who she mistakenly thought was a GP.

    The 30-year-old, who lived in London, was seen twice by an associate and told that her calf pain was an ankle sprain when she actually had a blood clot.

    A coroner ruled at her inquest that she should have been sent to A&E straight away and that if she had been then it is likely she would have survived.”

    This is written as if GPs don’t tell people that “you’re too young to get bowel cancer” or that a malignant lump is benign. And how well did all that regulation work with Lucy Letby?

  5. The shortage of UK Doctors in entirely man-made, or actually Union-made, because the number of places for UK students to study medicine is limited due to a deal between the Government and the BMA:

    A-levels U-turn: Government considering lifting cap on medicine places

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53830172

    In any typical year, medicine is a competitive subject for which to gain entry and is heavily oversubscribed. The number of places available to study medicine is regulated by the different UK governments and strictly controlled through intake targets. There will be greater competition than usual for places in 2021 as the number of places available remains the same as in 2020 at around 9,500 places.

    https://www.medschools.ac.uk/news/record-number-of-applicants-to-medicine-results-in-increased-competition-for-places

    Also:

    The university says it is unable to admit UK students due to government limits on places to study medicine.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-34326453

  6. Bloke in North Dorset

    This is written as if GPs don’t tell people that “you’re too young to get bowel cancer” or that a malignant lump is benign.

    Wow, you must know me and my family.

    In the early ’70s my mother went to her GP 3 times with a lump on her breast during her periods and was told it was benign. By the time he got round to referring her to a specialist it was too late. They tried a mastectomy and chemo but they didn’t work.

    My youngest brother went to his GP in Stevenage with stomach pains and was told it was cholic. Again by the she got round to referring him it was too late and he died of bowel cancer 6 weeks before his 40th birthday. I think if he’d lived round here where there’s more old people than babies he might have got an earlier referral and survived.

    And another anecdote. A neighbour is fortunately recovering from cervical cancer. She was originally told by the specialists that it was operable but when they operated they found it was too big for an operation. She then had to wait 6 nerve wracking weeks for it to heal before they could even start chemo.

    I’m sure there’s a lot more similar anecdotes about our best in the world healthcare system.

  7. Jonathan @ 8.52, the hand of government fucks things up once again.

    Just to clarify my comment above – I was referring to having highly trained staff doing basic stuff in A & E – last time I went to A & E (something like 15 years ago) triage was done by a Nurse first.
    We have nurses, not trained to the level of a Doctor, doing routine stuff in surgeries (hell, Pharmacists in the chemists).

  8. Nurses who don’t read your notes and seem to be working off a script or a prescribed decision tree. No allowance for initiative or independent thought. Pharmacists who don’t even have access to your notes. Or a doctor who has initiative and notes but you can’t get in to see.

  9. Doctors hate Dr Google but consult him all the time.
    So cut out the middle man, google your symptoms, get a menu of possible causes. (Some wags call this Artificial Intelligence.) Pay for a scan or whatever, an MRI or CT might be a couple of hundred quid. Get doctor to review results, refer if necessary to specialist, get surgery / treatment.
    A sight better than being fobbed off with the usual drugs, statins and hypertension pills.

  10. Nurses who don’t read your notes and seem to be working off a script

    Exactly this happened 3 or 4 years ago. I had had a blood test and went to see the land whale nurse about it. She didn’t like one of the results and tried to prescribe some drug. I told her I didn’t need it. Naturally she became arsey and asked me how I knew.
    I said “Because the consultant said so.”
    “Which consultant said this?”
    “The one whose letter is there on your screen.”

  11. The UKIPgraph says that it is unfair to patients who do not realise that they are not “medically qualified”.
    How is it fair to patients that they are not examined or treated at all?
    Just asking

  12. My better half has been suffering from persistent headaches recently.
    Unable to see a doctor face to face (they are all ‘working’ from home) she was instead fobbed off with a telephone consultation.
    She was given a prescription for migraine tablets – which did nothing.
    Out of frustration she went to A&E where she had the good fortune to be seen by a competent and conscientious consultant.
    He was livid that she hadn’t been seen in person and had the most basic tests done which would have diagnosed her high blood pressure as the cause of her problems.
    Now of course, she has to go back to her doctor to help find the cause of her high blood pressure…

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