Bulletin 18.10.2011
Prescribing Specials Guidance
The National Prescribing Centre (NPC) has published this guidance for prescribing specials. The guidance explains what specials are and advises on when to prescribe a special. Appendix 2, Prescribing Specials: a quick checklist for prescribers may be of particular use for GPs.
Social Determinants of Health – what can doctors do?
This BMA report about health inequalities gives some practical examples of what doctors can do to make a difference. This report follows on from the work led by the previous BMA President, Sir Michael Marmot, focusing on health inequalities as one of the many priority areas of work for the BMA. The BMA urge all GPs to consider what they could do to reduce inequalities. We see it all around us and may well be immune to what we see, but we can still think about the issues, and the BMA hope we all will.
Vault Cytology
Following discussions in 2010, the Advisory Committee for Cervical Screening has written to GPC to reconfirm their views that the responsibility for follow up care of women who require vault cytology lie with their gynaecologist, not their GP. The Advisory Committee and the British Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology (BSCCP) agreed that gynaecological clinics were the best place for cytology samples to be taken. There is still some flexibility in that GPs who wish to continue this practice, can do so on a case by case basis in agreement with their local gynaecologist, however there is no contractual requirement for GPs to do this work. The GPC recommends that this should be an exceptional situation and GPs should not be pressured to undertake the recall and continued surveillance for women whose indication for ongoing vault smears will have been a malignant diagnosis.