BBC Radio 4’s Today programme in the United Kingdom ran a story about how doctors don’t want to work in A&E.
The segment explained that doctors won’t talk about this in public as it’s a sensitive issue and they don’t want to be named. It is nonetheless always interesting to hear a healthcare professional sharing the reality of the situation in public health, and this was possible with an anonymised viewpoint from one healthcare professional. Such practical perspective can add a new dimension to issues which are all too often politicised.
Wanting to know what other healthcare professionals might think, I took a quick look at the voice of doctors and nurses using public social media – using Creation Pinpoint, a technology which isolates the views of HCPs in public social media. With this service, it is possible to remove the ‘noise’ of general public viewpoints and the to-and-fro which such a public health issue attracts.
Sure enough, healthcare professionals are talking about this online.
In the mini-investigation, which at the time of writing is a still-lively topic in current affairs, the breadth of issues and concerns has indeed seen some lively debate among healthcare professionals. Our now social lives provide tremendous value in the expression of expert opinion. Consider some of the real issues shared by doctors in their Twitter streams:
Doctors share a number of other issues which they believe should be part of the debate about Accident & Emergency resource challenges in the United Kingdom
Among the conversation, there are senior members of the health profession who are clearly passionate about the NHS. They know from first-hand experience about the complexities facing emergency departments. Their opinions are important to the conversation. Clare Gerada, until recently the chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners, suggests:
Two HCPs exchange views on the potential solutions to the A&E crisis in the UK.
Perhaps we will yet see some some more doctors stepping forward to the mainstream media – where their voices will be heard among the masses and may even bring transformation and new strategies to a situation which affects so many lives.
Update 15 January 2014, an excellent and comprehensive piece from Allyson Pollock:
You can comment and join the debate at some of these locations:
- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25713374
- http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2538936/A-E-locums-cost-80million-year-NHS-turns-temps-casualty-doctors-desert-UK.html
- http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/cost-of-ae-locum-doctors-soar-60-in-three-years-9057872.html
- http://www.standard.co.uk/news/health/bill-for-ae-locum-doctors-doubles-in-just-three-years-9058761.html
- http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jan/14/nhs-spending-temporary-locum-doctors-up-60-percent
Photo credit: 2E0MCA / Foter / Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
