Time 2
Speaking at the Royal College of GPs’ annual conference in Liverpool on Thursday, he said: “The old model of 10-minute appointments doesn’t really work for patients with multiple long-term conditions who may need 30, 40, 50 minutes to get to the bottom of all their needs.”
Awhile back, I read that a Danish primary care doc had been prosecuted because he had made key decisions about a patient based on a 10 minute consultation. In one sense I was cheered by this. But talking to Danish dermatologists last week, I am not so sanguine. It seems that yet more new ‘efficient’ IT is the weapon to degrade the consultation even further. Eventually there really will be no time to let the patient into the consultation room. And still the mantra of consultations skills for medical students will continue. All irony intended.