Using out-of-hours services: general practice or A&E? |
| |
Authors: | Shipman C; Longhurst S; Hollenbach F; Dale J |
| |
Institution: | Department of General Practice and Primary Care, King's College School of Medicine and Dentistry, London, UK. |
| |
Abstract: | BACKGROUND: General medical and accident and emergency (A&E) services
are the two major providers of open access out-of-hours care, and there are
widespread concerns about rising and non-urgent demand presented to both.
METHODS: This paper examines the differential use of these services out of
hours, in an audit and research study two A&E departments and 21
practices in South London. It focuses on aspects of demand, including time
of contact, age-related usage and nature of presenting complaints. Through
interviews with a subsample of 82 patients who attended A&E, it also
provides a more qualitative focus on differential decision making. RESULTS:
Findings show that there are differences in the way A&E and general
medical services are used in terms of age-related demand and aspects of
presenting complaints. Significantly more families with children aged under
10 contacted a GP, and whilst more digestive, respiratory and
viral/non-specific complaints were presented to GPs, musculoskeletal
problems constituted the largest category of complaints presented at the
A&E departments. However, some usage relating to perceived and actual
availability of services appeared to be interchangeable in terms of
site-of-help seeking. CONCLUSION: There is a need for a collaborative
multi-method approach to respond to and influence demand.
|
| |
Keywords: | |
本文献已被 Oxford 等数据库收录! |
|