Patient trends and referrals

GPs views on health issues

With an ever-growing focus on the improvement of local services for all, perhaps it is not surprising that there has been little change in the number of patients being referred for out-of-area for treatment.

70% of GPs say that 10% or fewer of their patients are referred elsewhere – and in most cases GPs know where to refer their patient. However, one in ten GPs we spoke to (9%) have difficulties identifying an appropriate consultant in up to 50% of cases resulting in 70% of GPs referring less than 10% of their cases to a named consultant.

Awareness and communication is important: it’s disturbing to note, then, that eight out of ten GPs (80%) say they have difficulty contacting the consultant for continued care in up to 25% of cases.

Another area of concern we have identifies is that GPs have difficulty making referrals in certain areas. This is particularly noticeable when treating patients with eating disorders (53%) undefined mental health issues (35%), or conditions that display a mixture of physical and psychological symptoms such as ME/chronic fatigue syndrome (60%) or work-related stress (53%).

Perhaps most significantly, as a sign of the times and a true indication of the ‘health of the nation’ itself, stress (70%) and depression (67%) show the greatest increase in cases-per-GP over the past year.

• GPs estimate that mental health issues (45%) will be the biggest health issue of 2011.

Would you like to see more details?

For more information, we encourage you to download the full Health of the Nation report (PDF 539KB). Hard copies are also available by request, from hcpr@aviva.co.uk.