House Calls

[ronnyca]

Whatever happened to this practice? Do any doctors or prospective doctors want to go back to this style of care? It just seemed like such a great model of patient interaction: the doctor is allowed into the home and is always available for such visits. Why has this fallen by the wayside?

[Dr Rob]

I think that now the NHS is free for all there would be too many calls for the doctors to handel. Also medicine is now much more advanced and it would be impossible for a hospital doctor to carry all th equipment they need to someones house. It might work on a GP level, but round where i live its quite hard to get an appointment as the GP's are swamped with people demarnding their attention. might work on a private health care system though.

[M Clayton]

It still happens in some specialities - the psychiatrists up here seem quite fond of their domicillary visits, for example.

[Tyraell]

OP - I thought this model was abandoned when it led to doctors were working 100+ hr weeks, being called out for coughs in the middle of the night, and an epidemic of marital breakdowns. The new deal for doctors got rid of all that...

I know what you mean though - it'd be nice to be there for the patients more; but doctors have to have a life, or they'll lose that 'human' bit which patients connect with.

[Singingdoc]

I did my work experience in Cardiff - some service users that I worked with still received house calls. Each GP in the practice was assigned a day and sometimes the practice nurse also visited - the patients had to ring up in the morning by 10am and then they were often fitted in....

[kiya]

GPs still do home visits all the time if a patient can't get to the surgery. In primary care it's absolutely essential, in my opinion, for doctors to do house calls, as many patients are too infirm to make the journey in to see the doctor.

[elz]

yea i believe they still do them if the patient really cant get out the house. but they have these night centres to visit the night dr dont they. i suppose the house call situation is quite open to abuse though, if ur a male gp and visit a woman on her own u never kno what some crazy loons gonna claim etc mayb thats why they prefer the centres, also expense, time etc