International Focus: United Kingdom

Pay Attention People!

Apparently, talking or text messing on a cell phone is not only dangerous while driving but also when walking. Have you every seen people so involved in their text messages that they cannot see where they are going?

In London, England a group by the name of 118 118 has made its mission to make streets more pedestrian friendly. In an effort to do so, many street lights have now been covered in a Styrofoam padding to protect those pedestrians who are too involved in their conversations to see where they are going. According to the group, over 6.5 million people have been hurt while talking or texting because they were not being observant!....In my opinion, another waste of tax payer money….

What is a Polyclinic?

If you have every worked in a hospital or had a grandparent with multiple health issues, you know the importance of continuity of care and how difficult it can be when a patient has five different doctors for eight different diagnoses and two pharmacies to handle the medications.

In the UK, the NHS (National Health Service) is promoting the creation of mega health clinics, known as polyclincs. These clinics will be capable of hosting multiple clinical services such as major surgeries, psychotherapy treatments, social services, and specialty and outpatient clinics. In addition, patients can be referred by their primary care physician or as a self-referral.

The Good, the Bad, the Ugly-

The benefits of polyclinics are fairly obvious: Patients have access to various specialties and health professionals in a close setting. In addition, continuity of care is increased as patients are receiving their care in the same place and all care is documented through a consistent system of medical records.

The Bad-These polyclinics are so large that they must be in urban areas such as London…Patients who live in rural areas are still subjected to travel great distances to these clinics since there probably will not be enough demand for them outside of the cities.

The Ugly-Not all physicians are on board with these polyclinics. Many see these conglomerates as a waste of money and it would weaken smaller existing facilities. (Think the Wal-Mart comes to a small town theory)