Challenges facing doctors

GP consultations need to be extended from 10 to 15 minutes to give patients more time to discuss their health, family doctors are arguing. The 10-minute appointment that is usual across the NHS is no longer adequate given the growing number of people who have several long-term illnesses, according to a report from the Royal College of GPs. However, while longer consultations are needed to ensure proper patient care, they will only be possible if the staffing of GP surgeries increases significantly, the college admits. “It is abundantly clear that the standard 10-minute appointment is unfit for purpose. It’s increasingly rare for a patient to present with a just single health condition and we cannot deal with this adequately in 10 minutes,” said Prof Helen Stokes-Lampard, the college’s chair. “GPs want to deliver truly holistic care to our patients, considering all the physical, psychological and social factors potentially impacting on their health. But … [Read more...] about GPs say 10-minute appointment with doctor is too short

Patients will have to get used to seeing a pharmacist or physiotherapist instead of a family doctor because the NHS will never overcome its chronic lack of GPs, health experts say. The NHS in England will no longer be able to care properly for patients without a major shake-up of GP services, the country’s three main health thinktanks argue in a report published on Thursday. The one in five people who attend a GP surgery because of back pain and similar issues will increasingly have to be treated by a physiotherapist, and pharmacists will issue repeat prescriptions and conduct medication reviews, as part of a drive to relieve the pressure on overworked GPs. The Royal College of GPs (RCGP) said the NHS should not to use other staff as “direct substitutes” for trained family doctors. The report by the King’s Fund, Nuffield Trust and Health Foundation says: “The shortfall in the number of GPs is so serious that it cannot be filled at all. The only way forward … [Read more...] about Shortage of GPs will never end, health experts say

If you want to get this briefing by email, sign up hereJohnson and Corbyn set for head-to-head debateIn seven days' time, Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn will have a fair idea which of them will be in a position to at least try to form a government. For the moment they are preparing for Friday evening's hour-long BBC One debate, hosted by Nick Robinson. From 20:30 GMT, they will face questions both from the audience and submitted via the BBC News website.It looks likely to be the last big primetime TV moment for the pair, although BBC interviewer Andrew Neil has submitted a final challenge to Mr Johnson to follow the other main party leaders in submitting himself to interview. In a monologue at the end of his grilling of Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage, Mr Neil said: "The theme running through our questions is trust - and why at so many times in [Mr Johnson's] career, in politics and journalism, critics and sometimes even those close to him have deemed him to be untrustworthy." The … [Read more...] about News Daily: Leaders go head-to-head and Briton’s six-hour cardiac arrest

Until fairly recently, Jhumpa Lahiri didn't have much name recognition in this country. But in the US, where she grew up and lives, and in India, where her parents were born, she's had star status since the beginning of her career. Her first story collection, Interpreter of Maladies (1999), which she finished not long after turning 30, won a string of awards that culminated in the Pulitzer prize for fiction. Her first novel, The Namesake (2003), was also well received and became a US bestseller; a less well received film of it by Mira Nair was released in 2006. Her marriage in Calcutta in 2001 to Alberto Vourvoulias-Bush, a Guatemalan-American journalist, was given Hollywood-scale coverage by the local media, complete with paparazzi shots. And - unusually, to say the least, for a serious piece of writing, let alone a story collection - her new book, Unaccustomed Earth, went straight to the top of the New York Times fiction bestseller list. One of the things that make Lahiri's success … [Read more...] about Change and loss

AN ELECTRICIAN is fighting for life in a coma after a single punch attack in Ibiza. Gavin Roberton suffered a fractured skull and bleeding on the brain after the unprovoked attack in the early hours of Wednesday morning. The 26-year-old, from Stewarton, Ayrshire, was rushed to Policlinica del Rosaria hospital where he remains in an induced coma. His frantic mum Kirsty McMaster, 45, and aunt Paula Marshall, 37, have now flown out to hold vigil by his bedside. Speaking from the hospital, Kirsty said: “Gavin’s in a stable condition in an induced coma just now. “But we don’t know if or when he will wake up.“The doctors say it will be at least five days before they try to take him off it, so this week is critical. “The pressure on his brain keeps going up and down. We just don’t know what the lasting damage could be.” LAD'S HOLIDAY Gavin and eight pals had only jetted off to the White Island on Saturday for a lads holiday and were due to fly … [Read more...] about Harrowing photo of Brit, 26, in coma after single punch in Ibiza leaves him fighting for life