OBJECTIVE To examine the demographic changes in the cohort of general practitioners servicing residential aged-care facilities (RACFs) from 1984 to 2000. DESIGN Quantitative analysis of Medicare datasets from 1984 to 2000. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING All GPs who provided Medicare-claimed RACF services from 1984 to 2000. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Aggregate data on RACF GPs by age group and sex; t...

First Do No Harm' is a series of 12 brief monthly articles with internet footnotes about harming and healing in general practice. Each instalment is based on one of the 12 RCGP competency domains, this month's being: 12. Fitness to practise: the doctor's awareness of when his/her own performance, conduct, or health, or that of others, may put patients at risk and the action taken to protect pat...

which problems might arise in this delicate area. Contributors: RJ, JRo, and JRy had the original idea for the study. Data were collected by SH and SC. JB analysed the data and drafted a report. All authors wrote the paper. RJ is guarantor. Funding: SH and SC were funded by the London Deanery GP Department as academic senior registrars in general practice. Competing interests: None declared. Et...

This paper presents a retrospective case control study of the General Practice consultation rates of 58 soldiers made voluntarily redundant. The redundees were compared over 140 days prior to the announcements of redundancy and 140 days after the announcements. No difference in consultation rates was found between the groups suggesting that voluntary redundancy in the Army has no effect on heal...

Continuous quality improvement is a complex approach to improvement that describes an all encompassing “package” of principles, methods, and techniques (box). For large organisations setting out to change working practices in line with the principles of continuous quality improvement, implementation of the complete package may be appropriate. But for much smaller organisations with fewer resour...

recognise that longer consultations are needed in general practice. This will undoubtedly need reorganisation within practices, butwe have been able to offer 15minute appointments as standard for 8 years inourpracticewithhugebenefits for ourselves, and we are confident, for patients’ too.2 There is now substantial continued evidence that longer consultations can improve quality of care.3 With e...

The efficacy, tolerability, and acceptability of topical applications of ketoprofen gel (2.5% w/w), piroxicam gel (0.5% w/w), and diclofenac gel (1% w/w), when administered three times daily for 5 days, in the treatment of acute (within 48 hours) soft-tissue injury, were compared in an open-label, randomized, multicenter, general practice study. Of 1575 patients recruited, 1048 received ketopro...