We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2012
This chapter explores the issues surrounding a patient's complaint about his treatment at a general practice (family medicine) surgery/clinic. We consider the importance of good medical record keeping, team meetings, establishing practice values and the role of significant event analysis (SEA) in patient care.
It is Tuesday evening and the City Health Centre in the north of England is busy as usual. There are two GPs (one male and one female) and two nurses (one female practice nurse and one female advanced nurse practitioner) seeing patients through a mix of booked appointments (for registered patients) and as walk-in patients (who wait in a ‘queue’ to be seen). This health centre is both a traditional general practice surgery with registered patients and a walk-in centre for people requiring acute but not emergency health care. Walk-in patients do not need to be registered at this practice; they attend the centre because they are unable to wait for a consultation at their own registered practice.
David Turner is a 49 year old registered patient who rarely attends the surgery. Tonight he arrives without an appointment at 6pm and asks to see a doctor, preferably male. he receptionist informs him that the only available slot is with the nurse practitioner, who will be able to see him in about 20–30 minutes. David reluctantly agrees to this and takes a seat. From his position he has a clear view of the reception area and over the next half an hour sees practice staff coming and going, including a man he concludes is one of the GPs. This person is chatting to the receptionist for at least 10 minutes; it is difficult to hear what is being said; however, there is quite a lot of laughter. A young woman with a baby comes in and asks to see a GP, and the presumed male doctor agrees to see her there and then. Eventually, after 40 minutes, David is called through to see Susan Wright, the experienced nurse practitioner. David informs her he has had bleeding from his back passage for the last week on and of, and presumes he has a recurrence of the piles that troubled him about 2 years ago. Susan asks him some questions and then suggests she examines him.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
