Rammya Mathew: Is the GP’s professional opinion no longer valued?

Our practice manager recently asked me and my colleagues to review a list of patient referrals that had been rejected by secondary care. We’ve always had a handful of rejections, but the sheer volume we’re getting now is unprecedented. The reasons for these rejections are varied but, in my opinion, this can all be traced back to waiting list management. Specialist services are becoming increasingly selective about who they’ll see, and it’s leaving many of my patients in limbo, unable to get the care they need.I know that many specialists have their gripes about the quality and detail of referrals from primary care. In an ideal world I’d want my own referrals to be more comprehensive than they sometimes are, but given the time pressures, just seeing and managing patients often takes priority over perfecting a referral. On rare occasions GPs do refer patients to the wrong service—but what isn’t…
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