Doctors concerned by role duplication as community matrons launched
The Health Secretary John Reid has said there will be an increased role for community matrons caring for those suffering from long-term illness.
But, the British Medical Association (BMA) has expressed concerns that this could actually duplicate existing work by doctors.
The new system is designed to improve care for the 17.5 million of people in Britain suffering from incurable but treatable conditions such as diabetes or asthma.
At the centre of the vision will be the “community matron” who will provide one-to-one support to the most vulnerable patients, with the aim of improving quality of life, reducing the amount of emergency visits to hospital and preventing premature death.
The Government’s target is to have 3,000 such matrons in place by March 2007.
Speaking today, Mr Reid said: “There are already some excellent examples of long-term conditions management, but we want to see this excellence spread across the country. The new model of care announced today will provide the NHS with the blueprint to do just that.
“We expect the new long-term conditions model to be fully incorporated into the way the NHS and social care deliver care to people with long-terms conditions. This will involve organisational change in some areas, but these changes will be vital to the health of many patients and will ultimately save lives.”
However, Dr Hamish Meldrum, chairman of the BMA’s GPs committee, pointed out: “A core part of every GP’s work is looking after patients with these conditions and managing their care in the community. Many GPs will take exception to the English Department of Health’s comment that these conditions go unmonitored and unmanaged.”
He added: “If the idea of community matrons is going to work, they have to be fully integrated into primary care, working with general practice and not at cross purposes. The Government is already investing additional resources via the new GP contract, funding family doctors to do precisely this work. GPs want what is best for their patients. If this initiative provides additional resources to do that, it will be a positive move, but if it is starting up a separate service there is a danger it will duplicate the efforts of everyone involved.”
