Thoughts on GPs and social workers.

Abstract

GPs and social workers both provide services to local residents in specific geographical areas but they are organised very differently. We all register with a GP to have access to medical help when we think we need it. However, social work departments (Children’s Services and Adult Services as well as the multidisciplinary Child and Adolescent Mental Health Teams and Community Mental Health Teams) work with people often referred by others for practical support, to access treatment or to provide reflective space for a crisis or problematic relationship. GP and social care services in a locality do have something in common, however: they are both totally dwarfed by a local hospital employing thousands, which sits like a tanker in a community pond alongside our little canoes. We agree that face-to-face contact is the most successful way to build relationships — but our different working practices make meetings hard to arrange. GPs account for their every minute seeing individuals in the …