RCGP's position on the Assisted Dying Bill.

conclusion being Friday afternoons would be the period for low-threshold prescribing. Reasons behind this include the fact that patients seen on Fridays have the weekend to potentially become even more unwell;3 making it appropriate to prescribe before the weekend. There is also the idea that some physicians prescribe on Fridays so their patients will not make use of other doctors or walk-in centres over the weekend.4 Another reason given interested me greatly: would doctors give less thought and prescribe more simply because it was Friday? After all, not giving antibiotics involves a greater investment of physician time.5 The temptation is there: even as a pre-registration house officer, I have felt frustration when patients arrive late at the end of a week. Would this and the fact that it’s Friday affect our prescribing? During my time at Selsdon Park Medical Practice (a five-partner surgery in South London) Egton Medical Information Systems (EMIS) searches that were performed achieved numbers of patients seen per day, then detected how many of these were prescribed antibiotics. From 4 January–24 April 2004, the practice saw 12 144 patients with 20 342 total entries. Thus, on average, a patient has 1.675 complaints. Antibiotic prescriptions totalled 1533. Averaged results for prescribing rates of each day are: