Selected items from the NHS England long term plan Part 6

[holyshedballs]

The plan calls for reduced specialists to more generalists. To me, this is a mixed blessing and depends on how the transition is managed and the generalists are trained.

4.24. The way doctors are trained and the way they work will be a key component of the workforce implementation plan. We want to accelerate the shift from a dominance of highly specialised roles to a better balance with more generalist ones. A quarter of adults currently live with two or more long-term conditions164, and medical training needs to support doctors to manage comorbidities, alongside single conditions. A survey of 50 smaller hospitals found only five had more than 60% ‘generalist’ doctors with no correlation between medical patient case mix and skill mix expressed as the percentage of generalist staff165.

4.25. So we will test a wide range of new incentives to ensure the balance between specialist and generalist doctors, and the balance of specialties within medicine, better matches patient needs. We will also work to ensure specialty choices made by doctors are better aligned to geographical shortages

[humanbean]

The plan calls for reduced specialists to more generalists. To me, this is a mixed blessing and depends on how the transition is managed and the generalists are trained.

This will be a disaster. It's just dumbing down the medical profession. Getting anyone to recognise and test for a thyroid problem will be harder than ever.

Also, if I get smashed up in a serious accident how many specialists will be available to put me back together again? There probably won't be enough to go round and the ones there are will spend their time in hospitals in well off areas. And I don't live in a well off area.

[holyshedballs in reply to humanbean]

i think you are right about the thyroid training. but, as a support group and major charity, together with the others, we can influence the changes - hopefully.

[Angel_of_the_North]

It depends on the training. In the past, it seemed that generalist knew more than they do now - they didn't rely on the computer and lab tests to tell them what was wrong. But honestly it just sounds like a method of population reduction