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| GP: ‘Sorry, but we’re
not paid to take out stitches’ |
Vicar lambasts Health Secretary
after being told to go to casualty
A VICAR who was told that cost cuts meant his GP’s
surgery could not remove stitches has made a stinging complaint
to Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt.
At the same time his GP has launched a petition calling on Islington
Primary Care Trust (PCT) to re-introduce payments for the procedure
after cuts were imposed last month.
The Rev Stephen Coles, vicar of St Thomas The Apostle Church in
Monsell Road, Finsbury Park, wrote to the government after Highbury
Grange Health Centre told him that Islington PCT was no longer paying
GPs to remove stitches or take blood tests.
He argued that this goes against government policy, which encourages
doctors to carry out minor procedures to take the pressure off hospital
casualty departments.
In the end – due more to Mr Coles’ persistence than anything
else – his GP relented and carried out the procedure.
The vicar had been discharged from St Luke’s Hospital for the
Clergy in Fitzrovia after two operations and given a letter to his
GP, explaining that he would need a couple of appointments for the
removal of stitches.
The surgery told him it was not funded to do the procedure, and
advised him to ring Whittington Hospital in Archway and make an
appointment with “someone who removes stitches”.
He contacted the hospital’s accident and emergency unit. Mr
Coles said: “The woman who answered said she had never heard
of such a thing. She said I could not make an appointment and suggested
I come to A and E and wait until someone could see me to remove
the stitches. I would need to return on two separate days to do
this.”
Mr Coles then rang his GP’s surgery again. He said: “The
practice manager consulted the practice nurse, who chose to make
an exception in my case. I then made two appointments.”
Sue Ellis, of Highbury Grange Health Centre, where four GPs and
locums care for up 6,000 patients, said: “We’ve been doing
this work for more than 10 years, and suddenly we’re told we’re
not being paid to do it any more. It’s not just the patients
who are angry, so are the doctors.” The surgery had launched
its own petition, she added.
In his letter to Ms Hewitt, Mr Coles said the government had consistently
stated that patients should go to their GPs for minor surgery and
not make hospital accident and emergency units the first resort.
He added: “But I am beginning to think you might be presiding
over a health service that is literally disintegrating as the various
parts watch their own budgets without considering the whole service.”
Mr Coles explained that, as a parish priest for 16 years, he had
been able to fight his corner, but he was concerned that many people,
particularly the vulnerable and more easily intimidated, could have
major problems in a similar situation.
A spokesman for the IPTC said: “We do fund doctors to carry
out the removal of stitches, a procedure that would generally be
carried out by the nurse at the surgery.
“We regret that a local patient had difficulty in obtaining
this service and we will speak to the surgery to clarify what has
happened.” |
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