Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Luke Bradford: College of GPs President on the number of GP specialist referrals being declined

Transcript

Luke Bradford: College of GPs President on the number of GP specialist referrals being declined · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: One in five GP referrals being turned down at the moment.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Figures come from the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists. They
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: look at seven health districts around the country. Health New
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Zealand doesn't keep any centralized data on this, despite the
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: fact Health New Zealand was meant to be the centralized
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: system that would solve all these problems. Dr Luke Bradford,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Royal New Zealand College of GP's medical director with me
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: this morning.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Look, good morning, good morning Ryan. How you doing.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: I'm very well and I'm told it your birthday, Happy birthday.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Thanks me.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Why people being declined for specialist appointments?
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Let people get graded when they get referred from sort
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: of priority one which is immediate threat to life through
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: to not particularly severe down at four. And then what
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: happens is Health New Zealand sets thresholds for which one
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: of those numbers will be seen. So the idea is
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: that ones will always be seen, twos will usually be seen,
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: three issued hope would be seen, but it gets shifted
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: according to availability and resource.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: So it's not just a purely medical determination here. It's
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: not saying you need to see one, therefore you will
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: see one. It's if there's none enough people, you'll be
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: booted off the list.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean so everyone gets graded clinically first, so
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: the doctor will grade them and give them a number,
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: and that the thresholds are set either locally or nationally
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: according to resource. I mean, ones do always get seen.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Right, But what would what would a three be?
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: Then?
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: If I was on a three, what would my ailment be?
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: Say you had a nasty shoulder arthritis, so it was
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: causing your lot of discomfort, You weren't able to use
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: your arm properly as well as you'd like kept your
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: awake at night, So that would be decided to find
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: as not limb threatening, not life threatening, but having impact
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: on life. And so they sort of sit in the
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: gray zone as to whether or not you get seen.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Do we know how many are in the gray zone
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: and how many of those in the gray zone get rejected?
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: No, I've got no idea. There's two reasons for that. Firstly, there's,
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: like you said, Hew, New Zealand don't record rejection data.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: They don't particularly easily make it clear what level each
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: service's threshold is at at any given time or when
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: that changes. And finally we know but because that varies,
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: and because GPS get used to the sort of some
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: of the twos, threes and most of the fours never
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: getting seen, a lot of stuff doesn't get referred into
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: the public system, even if the patient may actually need
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: some help.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Goodness man, look appreciate your time this morning, doctor Luke Bradford,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: who is Royal New Zealand College of GPS.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, Listen live
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: to news talks it'd be from five am weekdays, or
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.