Cost Or Benefits?17 Feb 2012

Whatever one thinks of the sense or otherwise of the proposed changes to the NHS; whether one regards them as changes for changes sake or highly important advances to medical care; one thing is plain.

The government plans to devolve as much medical care as possible to the Primary Care level.  The reasons are obvious; Primary Care comes a lot cheaper than Secondary Care and Practice Nurses / Nurse Practitioners come a lot cheaper than doctors.

Trained Practice Nurses are particularly cost-effective.  If you are a Nurse or a GP reading this ask yourself whether you have the necessary skills to take the changes on board and make them buzz.

The management of the vast majority of patients with chronic diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, asthma and COPD can be safely and effectively managed in Primary Care.

From the patient's point of view this is an ideal situation.  They can attend a clinic near to their own home, they see skilled doctors and nurses who they probably know well and see each time they attend.

If you do not have the necessary skills, the solution is usually to go on a course.  There are many of these which vary from small local courses of potentially questionable content through to fully-accredited national comprehensive courses.

The fact that a course is fully-accredited and national does not mean that they are run by impersonal academics. The Primary Care Training Centre has been teaching Diabetes, Cardiovascular Disease, Women’s Health and Respiratory Disease for 15 years. One of the things that crops up in evaluations over and over again is the friendliness of the staff and tutors. This is no accident.  Right from Day 1 it has been the opinion of the tutors, who all work in Primary Care and specialise in their chosen topic, that there is no such thing as a silly question.  That is why our courses are so popular.

Do you need further education?  Check us out.  We are sure you will find it worthwhile.