By Dr Edin Lakasing, Council Member for the Section of General Practice with Primary Healthcare, at the Royal Society of Medicine (RSM). Edin is also a busy GP at Chorleywood Health Centre,
It seems that new treatment approaches and technologies become available every day. Whilst this is good news it does mean that navigating the various treatment options and deciding which one is best for you, the patient, can be complicated and confusing. This means that the much vaunted ‘informed decision making’ for patients is not always easy to achieve. However, your GP is normally the best person to guide and assist you on how you want to be treated.
Even if you are considering paying personally or using your private health insurance to access specialist treatment it is always sensible to see your GP first.This ensures that there is proper continuity of care, which is particularly important as often the GP and other primary healthcare staff will be involved in aftercare once a patient has seen a Consultant, for example, continuing prescriptions, monitoring long-term conditions and on-going medication, arranging domiciliary care by district nurses, or even just removing sutures.
Furthermore, by discussing your ideas and condition with your GP you will be able to get advice on what treatment might be best for you and conversely, what would not be appropriate. In fact, policy guidance from the British Medical Association (BMA) says that it is usually ‘best practice’ for patients to be referred for specialist treatment by their GP. As a result, most specialists are reluctant to see patients privately without a GP referral letter and health insurers also usually insist on this.
This is particularly relevant when you consider that most medical conditions can be treated in a number of different ways and that you will need to decide on your preferred treatment choice. For example, the treatment options for lower back pain might include any one or more of the following:
- Orthopaedic surgery
- Neurosurgery
- Medical pain management
- Osteopathy
- Chiropractic manipulation
- Physiotherapy
- Diet and exercise
For each of the above treatments there will be numerous specialists with differing qualifications, clinic locations, treatment philosophies, charges and experience for patients to choose from. Although there are now many medical information websites these vary dramatically in quality, depth and independence. In these circumstances it is your GP who is best placed to give you the help and guidance that you need to make the decisions that are completely right for you.
GPs now also have immediate professional booking access to over 10.000 senior medical consultants who operate privately via gprefer.
