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GPs call for an end to home visits, saying they do not have time
Family doctors are calling for an end to home visits - saying they are too busy to visit the frail and elderly.
The radical proposal, to be put forward at a conference of the British Medical Association, would see the duties removed from the standard contract for GPs
Medics said house calls were too “time consuming” for family doctors, who were overloaded.
But patients’ groups said the threat to withdraw such services from GPs was “appalling” and would put the vulnerable at risk.
It comes after Boris Johnson promised to boost GP numbers by 6,000, in a bid to tackle rising waiting times to see a doctor.
Doctors will vote later this month on a proposal to remove home visits from the core GP contract, requiring a separate service to be created for those in need of urgent visits.
The motion, which says it is an “anachronism” to expect family doctors to include visits to the sick in their duties, will be discussed later this month at a conference of local medical committees (LMCs).
Dr Andy Parkin, who proposed the measure, said too many patients demanded home visits when they were able to travel to a local practice.
He said: “The key thing is to remove the expectation that home visits are a part of general practice. They are the most time-consuming part of the job; they are one of the most litigious parts of the job. Even trying to triage visits causes a lot of aggravation from patients who ring up and want a visit and don’t need a home visit.”
Such visits could take an hour at a time, much of it on the road, said the locum GP.
“There isn’t that free time in general practice anymore,” he told Pulse magazine.
The motion, from the BMA’s Kent LMC, calls on medics to pass a vote that says "GPs no longer have the capacity to offer home visits".
It says the BMA's general practitioners committee should renegotiate with the NHS to "remove the anachronism of home visits from core contract work, negotiate a separate acute service for urgent visits, and demand any change in service is widely advertised to patients."
Dr Richard Vautrey, deputy chairman of the committee, said the proposal was a reflection of the heavy workloads facing GPs.
He said: “I am very aware that practices feel under huge pressure, doctors are doing their best to prioritise patients to make sure they get the best care possible, but there is an awful lot of strain.”
He said medics would listen to the arguments at the conference on November 22, but stressed that a way would have to be found to ensure those in need of medical care at home could receive it.
Joyce Robins, from Patient Concern, said: “If people are too frail or sick to get to the GP, they need their doctor to be able to go out to them - it is hard enough now but to take that away would be appalling.”
Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard, Chairman of the Royal College of GPs, said: “GPs and our teams are under enormous pressure and are working flat out to try and keep pace with rising patient demand.
“We have a severe shortage of GPs and many practices are having to make very difficult decisions about where best to allocate their time and resources in order to deliver the maximum benefit for their patients.
“Home visits can be very time consuming and takes the GP away from the surgery when they could be seeing other patients, and where there are far better facilities to properly assess patients.”
While some visits could be carried out by other clinicians - such as advanced paramedics, she said it was vital that patients who needed to see a GP were able to do so.
“Ultimately, this proposal will be for the BMA, as the doctors’ union, to decide, but it would need a lot of consideration and any changes would need to be widely and sensitively communicated to patients,” she said.
“Meanwhile, we would urge our patients requesting a home visit to consider very carefully whether they really need one, so that valuable GP time is spent most wisely on those patients who need it most.”