Abstract
Nearly everyone agrees that a general practitioner can help the hospital service most, in its staffing difficulties and shortage of beds, by treating his own patients well in their homes. Not all can be treated at home, however, and there are five questions about family doctors and hospital beds which must be answered soon if the proper role of the general practitioner in the health services of our country is to be recognized: (1) Should he treat any of his patients in hospital beds ? (2) If so, can he be fully responsible for their care ? (3) What part should he play in specialist teams in hospital ? (4) How many beds does he need ? (5) Where should they be situated-in general-practitioner hospitals, or in annexes or wards of general hospitals ? Sir George Schuster (1961), speaking to the General Practice Section of the Royal Society of Medicine, rightly stressed the importance of co-operation between family doctors and the hospital service. He invited comment from general practitioners on this subject, and one hopes that many will accept his invitation. Here I express my own views and offer them as a possible basis for further discussion. Advances in medical knowledge have strained to the utmost the resources of general practitioners in this country, and the National Health Service has been criticized for not bringing the benefits of modern medicine sufficiently to patients in their homes. To keep the family doctor of to-day in touch with scientific methods is one of the main arguments in favour of bringing him into closer contact with hospital work. The weakest argument, with general practice already undermanned, is that he should return to the hospitals because they are now short-staffed and rely so heavily on junior doctors imported from abroad.
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