To undertake a service evaluation of the NHS East of England Supporting Self-Care in General Practice programme.

The number of people purported to live with long-term conditions continues to rise generating increasing policy emphasis on the importance of self-care. Previous work has highlighted barriers to implementing self-care interventions in general practice, including a lack of organisational approaches to providing self-care and limited engagement and training of healthcare professionals. In response to these barriers and policy drivers, NHS East of England Strategic Health Authority developed and commenced the Supporting Self-care in General Practice (SSCiGP) programme, which seeks to transform the relationships between people with long-term conditions and primary care practitioners.

This was a mixed methods study, carried out over two phases, which included interviews, survey work and practice-based case studies.

This paper focuses on findings related to clinician and practice level change. Clinicians reported changes in their perceptions and in consultation practices following attendance on the SSCiGP programme. These changes were linked to empathy and patient-centredness that mirrored what patients valued in interactions with clinicians. There were qualitative and descriptive differences, but no statistically significant differences between clinicians who had and had not attended the SSCiGP programme. Time was recognised as a significant barrier to implementing, and sustaining skills learnt from the SSCiGP programme.

Greater impact at practice level could be achieved when there was whole practice commitment to values that underpinned the SSCiGP programme. There was evidence that such approaches are being incorporated to change practice systems and structures to better facilitate self-care, particularly in practices who were early programme adopters.

This evaluation demonstrates that training around clinician change can be effective in shifting service delivery when sat within a cultural framework that genuinely situates patients at the centre of consultations and practice activity.

To describe conceptions of daily life in men living with a woman suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in different stages of the disease.

A chronic disease like COPD affects not only the person living with the illness, but also the spouse. Significant tasks and demands are placed on husbands. COPD has for a long time been considered more a man's disease than a woman's disease, but according to new evidence COPD is a vast problem in women, which requires support from their spouses. The literature review did not reveal any previous studies concerning conceptions of daily life in men living with women suffering from COPD in different stages.

A phenomenographic study was conducted. Data were collected from October 2008 to October 2009 through semi-structured interviews with 19 men living with a woman suffering from COPD.

Two main descriptive categories were found: (1) unchanged life situation where no support was needed; (2) changed life situation related to severity of COPD, where support was needed. The categories were described from the perspective ‘ME and my spouse’. Even in their caregiving situation, the men continued with their own life and activities and did not put themselves in second place. No support was needed from healthcare or municipality when the women had mild COPD, but this changed when the COPD progressed. The men felt that daily life was burdened, restricted and the partner relationship was affected, even if the disease had not reached the final stage. The COPD forced them gradually into a caregiving role, and their daily life changed. They become more of a caregiver than a spouse. The men experienced lack of knowledge and support, and they felt that health professionals and municipality did not care about them.

Primary care patients are commonly worried about their complaints when consulting their doctor. Knowing the reasons behind patients’ worries would enhance consultation practices. The aim of this study was to find out the reasons patients themselves give for their worries before a consultation and for possible relief or persistent worry after the consultation.

Our previous study using quantitative methods suggested that worried patients were uncertain about what was wrong with them and they perceived their complaints as serious. These results left some aspects unanswered; for instance, why did the patients consider their complaints severe.

We conducted semi-structured interviews of patients, aged 18–39 years, with somatic complaints other than a common cold (n = 40), both before and after a consultation, and the patients described their reasons for worry in their own words. These qualitative data were analysed using thematic content analysis.

The patients gave as reasons for their worries uncertainty, consequences of their complaints (eg, inability to work), insufficient control (eg, inadequate treatment) and prognosis. The patients were relieved when their uncertainty was diminished by getting an explanation for their complaint or when they achieved more control by getting treatment for their complaint. After a consultation, their reasons for worry, except for concern about the ability to function, tended to be replaced by other reasons. Psychological consequences and mistrust in health care also played a role in persistent worry. Our findings offer support to the patient-centred clinical method in primary care. To address the patients’ worries properly, the GP should bring them up for discussion. Special attention should be given to worries about the ability to function, as they tend to persist even after a consultation.

This study aims to evaluate changes in the durations of English National Health Service prescriptions, as indicated by the volumes of unit doses supplied between 1998 and 2009, and consider relevant policy implications.

Around the world, countries are seeking to manage the increase in medicines prescribing. In England, many primary care organisations, using limited supporting evidence of cost-effectiveness and clinical improvement, have sought to restrict the number of dosage units on a prescription to 28 days supply. This is based on a conviction that this reduces wastage costs.

Prescription Cost Analysis (PCA) statistics for England for the period January 1998 to December 2009 were used to analyse trends in the average number of unit doses (tablets or capsules) supplied per prescription for 11 drugs supplied in 34 different presentations.

The changes in prescription lengths observed between 1999 and 2009 ranged from +4.2% in the case of Amoxicillin 500 mg capsules to −41.3% in the case of Levothyroxine 50 μg tablets. All but four of the medicines selected showed statistically significant negative correlations (r > 0.8, P < 0.001) between the year of prescribing and the prescription length. If prescription lengths had been the same in 2009 as they were in 1999, then 33 million fewer prescription items would have been written for the preparations in this analysis. This shift across a range of medications suggests a generalised change in prescribing behaviour. The full balance of benefits and costs associated with this trend, as expressed via drug wastage avoided, patient (in)convenience experienced, professional time costs incurred or saved and positive or negative health outcome impacts, is not known. Although this study does not provide a definitive answer favouring prescription duration individualisation as opposed to standardisation, the available evidence indicates that policies that rigidly favour 28-day standard periods may require review.

Subclinical hypothyroidism (SCHo) is a common biochemical diagnosis in older age. Evidence of impact is inconclusive and guidelines are inconsistent. With increasing numbers of thyroid function tests (TFTs) performed, GPs frequently have to make management decisions regarding this diagnosis. However, little is known about how SCHo is currently being managed in primary care.

To explore management of SCHo in primary care and GP reported rationale for treatment of SCHo in older individuals.

Descriptive study using retrospective case note review and GP survey.

Nineteen General Practices, Central England, UK.

Follow-up of a large cohort with subsequent detailed review of individuals for whom therapy had been initiated following diagnosis of SCHo. Data on practice policies, and rationale behind treatment were collected via GP questionnaire.

Forty-two individuals were treated following identification of SCHo. Factors regarded as supporting instigation of therapy recorded by practitioners included symptoms, a positive antithyroid antibody test and history of radioiodine therapy. In all, 55% were registered at 3/19 practices suggesting significant between practice variation. Reasons for testing included chronic disease check-up (n = 14), presenting ‘thyroid symptoms’ (n = 5) and presenting other symptoms (n = 9). Reasons for therapy initiation were only recorded in 26 cases and included presence of symptoms, persistently high or increasing serum thyroid stimulating hormone concentration and patient request. Only 2/15 GPs reported having practice guidelines on management.

Results suggest that GPs are uncertain how to interpret symptoms and TFT results in older individuals. There is considerable variation in management of SCHo between GPs with some GPs treating patients outside of all guideline recommendations.

Seroprevalence study in Irula tribe of Marakkanam, Tamil Nadu State was carried out for certain bacterial (typhoid, syphilis and leptospirosis) and viral infection (hanta,hepatitis B and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)).

Highest seroprevalence was observed for leptospirosis (61.1%) followed by, hepatitis B virus surface antigen (11.11%), syphilis (9.72%), typhoid (8.33%), hantavirus (6.9%) and HIV (2.77%).

The seroprevalence of leptospirosis and hantavirus may be attributed to their professional exposure to rodent that they catch in the open field and the syphilis, hepatitis B and HIV prevalence may be related to their sexual behavior and social customs.

To identify the areas of daily function most affected by the introduction of Sativex, a cannabis-based medicine, and the impact on caregivers and people with multiple sclerosis (MS).

Cannabinoid medicines have recently become available on prescription in several parts of the world, principally for the treatment of spasticity in people with MS. Their efficacy and safety have been demonstrated in the setting of randomised controlled clinical trials. Results of such studies may not always reflect the wider effectiveness that a medicine shows when used in clinical practice.

A short questionnaire survey consisting mostly of multiple-choice questions, along with some free-text questions aimed at the patient and primary caregiver (ie, partner, mother, nurse or outside carer). The questionnaire was developed in consultation with a patient representative organisation, field tested, ethics approval gained, then distributed to prescribers in the United Kingdom, with the request that they in turn forward it to any patients who had received repeat prescriptions for Sativex within the previous 16 weeks. Patients were seen in both a primary care (general practice) and a secondary care (hospital) setting. There was no control group in this study. Most patients had MS, and the primary reasons for using Sativex were spasticity and pain.

The response rate was 57%, with 124 questionnaires returned. The majority of respondents and their caregivers reported improvements across a range of daily functional activities, alongside a reduction in the use of concomitant anti-spasticity medication and in the use of other healthcare resources.

To explore whether and how health visitors experience ethical tensions between the public health agenda and the need to be responsive to individual clients.

Current health policy in England gives health visitors a key role in implementing the government's public health agenda. Health visitors are also required by their Professional Code to respond to the health-related concerns and preferences of their individual clients. This may generate tensions.

A total of 17 semi-structured individual interviews covering participants’ experiences of implementing public health interventions and perceptions of the ethical tensions involved were conducted. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed and analysed thematically using a Framework approach.

Health visitors raised a number of ethical concerns, which they attributed to organisational resource allocation and the introduction of protocols and targets relating to public health goals. They did not always regard it as appropriate to raise topics that employing organisations had identified as public health priorities with particular clients for whom they were not priorities, or who had other more pressing needs. They noted that resources that were allocated towards reaching public health targets were unavailable for clients who needed support in other areas. Organisational protocols designed to monitor performance put pressure on health visitors to prioritise achieving targets and undermined their ability to exercise professional judgement when supporting individual clients. This had implications for health visitors’ sense of professionalism. Health visitors saw trusting relationships as key to effective health visiting practice, but the requirement to implement public health priorities, combined with a lack of resources in health visiting, eroded their ability to form these. Policies need to be evaluated with regard to their impact upon a broader range of processes and outcomes than public health goals. The erosion of health visitors’ professional values and ability to develop relationships with clients could have numerous adverse implications.