GPs Struggling To Make Eye Contact With Their Patients

Main Category: Primary Care / General Practice
Article Date: 04 Nov 2009 - 1:00 PDT

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GPs are so busy with data input and paperwork during their consultations that many are unable to spend enough time making eye contact with patients, a Pulse survey reveals.

A survey of 600 GPs finds the surge in computer-based work - such as recording of data to meet Government targets - has left GPs struggling to deliver patients personal care.

As many as 38% of GPs told the survey they were now unable to give patients enough eye contact during consultations.

GPs estimated just over half of a consultation (55%) is now spent addressing the patient's agenda, a third is spent on paperwork and data input, and the rest on other aspects of work.

The survey found 97% of GPs said consultations had become more complex and intense in the last five years (three quarters of them that complexity and intensity has 'greatly increased').

Although 55% of GPs have increased their appointment times over that period - to an average of 11 minutes - GPs said it was not enough. On average, GPs estimated they needed 14 minutes to meet their patients' needs.

The survey uncovered signs that the bureaucratic burden is affecting the doctor-patient relationship.

Dr Robert Baker, a GP in Swanage, Dorset, said: 'I could do with being split in two to manage prevention and curative aspects, both of which I am expected to address, for multiple systems, in 10 minutes.

'The demands of the patient's agenda, the Government's agenda and the requirement that everything I hear, say and do must be meticulously recorded make for an extremely crowded consultation.'

Half of GPs in the survey said their PCT or local health board did not actively support their practice in offering high-quality patient care, and 27% said they were 'actively obstructive'.

Richard Hoey, editor of Pulse, said: 'GPs' consultations with patients may have got a little longer, but they've failed to keep pace with the steep rise in computer work and the growing complexity of cases, as patients are managed in the community rather than in hospital.

'With 101 things to squeeze into a consultation, it's the personal elements that are being squeezed out - and that includes the real basics such as making eye contact with the patient.'

Source
Pulse

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