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Junior doctors have warned that allowing nurses, therapists, and technicians to perform basic surgical procedures would jeopardise patients' safety and diminish training opportunities for trainee surgeons.
At an annual conference for junior doctors held last week, delegates urged the BMA to oppose a new policy that would formalise the role of surgical care practitioners. The trainees believe that a political drive to cut costs and waiting lists underlies the proposals regarding such practitioners, which a conference resolution portrayed as "a misguided attempt by government to reach its arbitrary targets and to trick patients into accepting lower standards of care in return for lower costs."
Junior doctors also believe that patients would be misled by the job title and wrongly assume that surgical care practitioners are medically qualified.
A sample curriculum for these practitioners has been drawn up by the Royal College of Surgeons of England and the NHS Modernisation Agency, and a consultation exercise is currently under way. Under the proposals surgical care practitioners would assist in operations, under the supervision of a consultant surgeon. They would also take on more responsibility for preoperative and postoperative care.
Various career paths in the proposals are under consideration, and entrants to the training scheme could range from experienced theatre nurses to students fresh from secondary school.
The main safety risk is that professionals without broad medical training would not be equipped to make quick decisions when complications arise, said Ram Moorthy, the conference delegate who proposed the motion and an ear, nose, and throat specialist registrar at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital. "I don't think any operation is basic. There is always the potential for complications."
Mr Moorthy also worries that consultant surgeons will have less time to train junior doctors if they have the added responsibility of supervising surgical care practitioners. "If the consultant has to train the SCP [surgical care practitioners], who will be training me?"
The Royal College of Surgeons' proposals have been broadly supported by the Royal College of Nursing, with the caveat that entry to practitioner training should be restricted to experienced health professionals.
Mike Hayward, the college's professional nurse adviser in acute care, commented: "All this programme does is formalise what has been done for years, in a safe framework of knowledge and competencies. If you think of the years and years of experience that a theatre nurse may have, then they are ideally placed to perform minor surgical procedures."
He said that junior doctors would not have to miss out on training. There was no reason why an experienced surgical care practitioner could not teach a junior doctor about some aspects of surgery, he added. "Nurses are not trying to become mini-surgeons. Ultimately, modern day health care is about teams."
I haven't time to write a hopefully useful contribution to this at this time but I have just listen to the Health Minister defending herself on B.B.C. Radio 4 News, etc. regarding what amounts to the privatization of the operations on patients on the NHS.??? Only free NHS at the point of first treatment is being defended as a no no!!!
Denied of course but are we surprised?
With respect of a Junior Doctors Conference findings and Conference outcomes re. jeopardizing Patients' safety above, (Even if it makes me deeply unpopular here with a marked few, I agree with the JUNIOR DOCTORS' TOTALLY!!! Anyone who voted Labour in the last general election are about to get all they deserve and I strongly suspect even more than they deserve with regards to the NHS. and a few other things we did not even think about at the time of that little black 'X'! Free rein the English have given them with a safe majority!!!!
Regards,
Colin.
P.S. We used to have produce the body as are first right as a subject UNDER the CROWN in this country??? But not any more I didn't expect that to be taken literally in some cases though!!!.
Last edited by C Bain : 13th May 2005 at 03:34 AM.
Part of Quote by Mike Hayward, "......... . Ultimately, modern day health care is about teams."
Does this term "TEAMS" mean when defined,
1. The Consultant Surgeon as 'The Captain of the Ship'.
2. Surgeons, doctors, the First and Second Deck Officers of the Bridge.
3. The Nurses and other Health Professionals doing that which they have always done under the above Supervisory Ranks on the Bridge, (But still directly in their presence of course?).
OR:-
1. The team acting as independent health professionals unsupervised by the Bridge Offices' and left to get on with it to SAVE MONEY!!!
2. Committee Meetings and the decisions that come out of them, not directly from THE CAPTAIN?
3. A dispute with the CAPTAIN OF THE SHIP whilst the SHIP heads for the ROCKS looming ahead! The Committee meeting is in progress to decide what NICE or the like have decided somewhere else than where it's all at, (STILL WITH THE CAPTAIN!). The Surgeon is hovering over the PATIENT of course with Scalpel in hand at the time as he awaiting the Team decision?
Regards,
Colin. (A marked change to the present OPERATIONAL NORM I think!).
P.S. All this of course because the Surgeons and Doctors declared a monopoly, Labour does not like monopoly's who stand up to them!
Last edited by C Bain : 13th May 2005 at 04:39 AM.
Reason: Added P.S.
Doctors object to a wider role for surgical care practitioners
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