Abstract
Background: Residential and nursing homes make major demands on NHS services. Aim: To investigate patterns of access to medical services for residents in homes for older people. Design of study: Telephone survey. Setting: All nursing and dual registered homes and one in four residential homes located in a stratified random sample of 72 English primary care group/trust (PCG/T) areas. Method: A structured questionnaire investigating home characteristics, numbers of general practitioners (GPs) or practices per home, homes' policies for registering new residents with GPs, existence of payments to GPs, GP services provided to homes, and access to specialist medical care. Results: There were wide variations in the numbers of GPs providing services to individual homes; this was not entirely dependent on home size. Eight per cent of homes paid local GPs for their services to residents; these were more likely to be nursing homes (33%) than residential homes (odds ratio [OR] = 10.82, [95% CI = 4.48 to 26.13], P
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 545-548 |
Number of pages | 3 |
Journal | British Journal of General Practice |
Volume | 52 |
Issue number | 480 |
Publication status | Published - 2002 |
Keywords
- Frail elderly
- Health services accessibility
- Nursing homes