Secondary Care Follow-ups
I try very hard not to bash my secondary care colleagues. We are all on the same side - we all have issues - we perhaps don’t understand the pressures we are each under however yesterday I had a bit of a laugh.
We recently had a paper from our Sec State Health suggesting that a major priority for the NHS is reducing unnecessary follow up appointments - and how we can use the NHS App/AI/PROMS etc to help here.
I was reading the post weekend discharge summaries and came across an 82 year old lady whom I knew reasonably well who had about 5 co-morbid conditions who had been in for a minor stroke. She was on all the right meds and was doing well - or at least was stable. She was discharged with a comment for GP to monitor her.. like we were going to ignore her.. and a comment that they would see her in a year in out-patients for a follow up. I couldn’t work out if this was a mistake or a rather optimistic assessment of my care of her that id keep her going that long. Made me smile. I suspect when they get to a year - it will be delayed :-)
Perhaps they need to start with reviewing who they are following up and why?