General practitioners' views on geriatric day hospital care.

Sir, Concerns have been expressed that most general practitioners remain unaware of the services and facilities provided by geriatric day hospitals,1 and research has shown that general practitioners fail to distinguish between the therapeutic functions of geriatric day hospitals and the social care provided by day centres.2 It has been argued, therefore, that general practitioners need to be made more aware of the different roles of day centres and day hospitals.2 Donaldson has made the point that rehabilitation should be emphasized in geriatric day hospitals in order to meet their overriding objective which is to facilitate and prolong independent living for the elderly in the community.3 We carried out a survey of general practitioners to ascertain their opinions about the relative importance of geriatric day hospital functions. A nominal list of general practitioners provided by the Croydon family health services authority formed the study population. After two postings, 130 replies were received, giving a response rate of 79%o. General practitioners were divided according to length of time in practice, and the number of practice partners. A group practice was defined as three or more partners. Approximately two-thirds of general practitioners were in a group practice, and 43% had been in practice for less than 10 years. There was no relationship between practice size and length of time in practice. When asked to rank geriatric day hospital functions according to their relative importance, 54% of general practitioners ranked rehabilitation first (most important) and 37q% ranked medical assessment first (Table 1). For social care 13% of general practitioners ranked it first, 26% second and 61To third. For nursing care 7% ranked it first, 23% second and 70% third. General practitioners who had been in practice less than 10 years ranked medical assessment Table 1. General practitioners' views of relative importance of geriatric day hospital functions by length of time in practice.