The early days of primary care groups: general practitioners' perceptions

English primary care is currently undergoing radical reform. Primary care groups (PCGs), effectively compulsory federations of general practices, came into legal existence in April 1999. This paper contains a review of general practitioners' (GPs') initial perceptions of the impact of these reforms on practice and considers the wider issue of changes in professional autonomy. A random sample of 49 GPs from two adjacent health districts in the North of England were interviewed as part of a longitudinal qualitative study. One round of interviews took place 7 to 9 months after the creation of PCGs and a further round of interviews was carried out 6 months later. We were interested in GPs' knowledge of recently formed (PCGs') plans and priorities, the impact of PCG activity to date, and the predicted future impact of such activity. After the published priorities of PCGs had been identified, thematic content analysis was used to ascertain GPs' perceptions of those priorities. GPs were generally unaware of their PCGs' published priorities. The wider strategic role of PCGs in commissioning services was rarely alluded to. Although over a third of GPs reported no current impact of the PCG, the majority expected PCGs to have considerable impact. In particular, control, management and accountability arrangements were all perceived as central issues in the expected developments. Performance management arrangements related to specific clinical priorities were widely expected. Although the new arrangements were inspiring little enthusiasm, the reforms did not appear to threaten GPs sufficiently enough to provoke active resistance.     

Ethical issues in community health care

Health care professionals are expected to base their practice on a set of ethical principles, including truthfulness, beneficence, nonmaleficence, justice, and confidentiality. Dilemmas can arise, however, when a medical professional is called upon to act in opposition to personal values or in cases where the values of patient, health care worker, and sponsoring institution conflict. The author outlines several of the ethical dilemmas that have arisen in community medicine in Sri Lanka. Since preventive medicine is based on the assumption that protection of public health is primary, individual rights and freedom of choice may be overruled, as, for example, in the case of mandatory testing and isolation for communicable diseases. Numerous ethical dilemmas arise in family planning, including whether physicians are mandated to refuse women a permanent method of fertility control when the required spousal consent has not been obtained. In these cases, the physician must weigh the administrative requirement for spousal consent against the principle of physician-patient confidentiality. Physicians are also placed in a difficult situation when patients request Depo-Provera--a contraceptive method that has been banned in the US due to its side effects but remains available in Sri Lanka--or postcoital contraception given the illegality of abortion in the country. Throughout the Third World, physicians constantly encounter challenges to the ethical principle of just, equitable distribution of health care resources.     

The perceptions of occupational health in primary care

AIM: A random sample of general practitioners (GPs), practice nurses (PNs) and practice managers (PMs) in Sheffield and Manchester was recruited into a study to evaluate the perceptions of occupational health (OH) in primary care. METHODS: Qualitative data were collected using focus groups with three groups of primary care sector professionals. Quantitative data were collected nationally from 295 GPs using a postal questionnaire. RESULTS: GPs and PNs had minimal OH training, and 60% of GPs reported constraints in addressing OH matters with patients. The lack of referral routes (63 and 67%, respectively) was also seen as a barrier. OH was regarded as a speciality, and primary care professionals preferred to refer patients with OH problems to specialist centres because they perceived barriers to their dealing with the issues. A total of 74% of GPs surveyed thought that speedier access to secondary care would help them to address OH problems. CONCLUSIONS: This study has identified some of the problems associated with delivering OH through primary care. It also demonstrated a need for greater emphasis on OH education in medical and nurse training, and a need for better advice for GPs, PNs and PMs regarding support services for OH.     

Physical therapy as primary health care: public perceptions

This study investigated the public's knowledge of direct access and the role of physical therapists, and whether the public would consider using a physical therapist for primary care. Persons living in South Florida were selected at random by dialing telephone numbers. Using three-digit telephone number prefixes, four-digit suffixes were generated by rolling dice. When consent was obtained, the respondents' answers were recorded on a self-generated questionnaire. No knowledge of direct access was reported by 67.3% of the sample. Additionally, 57.4% of the sample had never been to a physical therapist. A substantial number of respondents (73.4%) stated that they would go directly to a physical therapist. Thus, the public poorly understands direct access and the role of the physical therapist. The members of the public might use physical therapists as primary care practitioners if they were aware of this option.     

Medically unexplained symptoms: perceptions of physicians in primary health care

BACKGROUND: Patients presenting with multiple symptoms represent a substantial part of a GP's total work load. At the same time, these patients account for the majority of the people on long-term sick-leave in Sweden today. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to explore GPs' perceptions and ways of managing patients with medically unexplained symptoms (MUS). METHODS: Five focus group discussions were conducted with a total of 27 GPs. In the collection and analysis of data, a phenomenographic approach was used. RESULTS: The GPs described how they used four different approaches to manage patients with MUS: a biomedical, a psychological, an educational and a psychosocial approach. Different approaches were used, depending on the patient and the situation, and the GPs even switched approach when working with the same patient. CONCLUSIONS: In their work with patients with MUS, GPs need support and further training to improve the way the biomedical frame of reference is integrated with the humanistic perspective.     

Ethical issues in public health

The significance of the binomial "ethics" and "public health" is firstly described. Several definitions are given. A few characteristics making bioethics (concerning mainly individuals) different from ethics in public health (concerning populations) are described. The authors point out how bioethics has been investigated more deeply than public health ethics. Synergy between the two is desirable and efforts should be made in order to promote integration. The importance of research and training in public health ethics and of data exchange with other branches of learning are underlined. A list of national and international institutions dealing with public health ethics is given.     

Patients' perceptions of primary health care in an inner-city practice

BACKGROUND: The 1978 Alma Ata declaration by the World Health Organization emphasized the importance of primary health care, which includes social services and participation, as well as primary medical care. In the UK, primary medical care is based on general practice, increasingly working from purpose-built premises with primary care teams. However, this does not usually include social services or involve patient participation. Both general practice and social services are undergoing reorganization as separate entities, with little emphasis on intersectoral collaboration. OBJECTIVES: We aimed to assess patients' perceptions of primary health care in an inner-city practice in terms of primary medical care, social services and participation. METHODS: Perceptions of medical and social services, together with levels of satisfaction and patient participation, were assessed by self-completed questionnaires for 248 patients attending an inner-city health centre and by 74 home interviews for those who had requested house calls. RESULTS: Patients were more satisfied with primary medical care than with other aspects of primary health care, such as housing. Older patients at home were less satisfied with primary medical care and more satisfied with social services than younger patients attending the health centre. Physiotherapy, chiropody and pharmacy were the services most requested at the health centre. A domiciliary pharmacy, help with hearing aids and a social worker at the health centre were the main requests by older patients at home. CONCLUSIONS: Medical and social services at primary care level should have coterminous boundaries based on general practice populations, ideally with access through multipurpose health centres.      

Service quality perceptions in primary health care centres in Greece

Context The paper refers to the increased competition between health care providers and the need for patient‐centred services in Greece. Using service quality methodology, this paper investigates service quality perceptions of patients in Greek public primary health centres. Objective To test the internal consistency and applicability of SERVQUAL in primary health care centres in Greece. Strategy SERVQUAL was used to examine whether patients have different expectations from health care providers and whether different groups of patients may consider some dimensions of care more important than others. Results The analysis showed that there were gaps in all dimensions measured by SERVQUAL. The largest gap was detected in empathy. Further analysis showed that there were also differences depending on gender, age and education levels. A separate analysis of expectations and perceptions revealed that this gap was because of differences in patients’ perceptions rather than expectations. Discussion and conclusions This paper raises a number of issues that concern the applicability of SERVQUAL in health care services and could enhance current discussions about SERVQUAL improvement. Quality of health care needs to be redefined by encompassing multiple dimensions. Beyond a simple expectations–perceptions gap, people may hold different understandings of health care that, in turn, influence their perception of the quality of services.