Family doctors offered training to deal with arthritis patients
Fifty London GPs are to be given extra training to help them deal with arthritis patients - who account for one in five of all visits to doctor's surgeries.
The GPs, from Islington and Camden, will take part in a new research study aimed at improving the service provided by family doctors to people with the crippling condition of arthritis - the biggest cause of disability in the UK.
A recent survey of 1,500 people throughout the country showed that many people with arthritis were told by their GPs just to go away and live with it. Eighty per cent of those questioned left the doctor's surgery without even a basic knowledge of their condition, its management, or treatment options.
According to one leading expert, Professor Mike Doherty from Nottingham, much of the current substandard treatment is due to ignorance among doctors, who retain a mistaken negative attitude to arthritic conditions, and a belief that nothing can be done for such patients.
"Musculoskletal complaints form a large part of the GP's workload, but unfortunately, they get very little formal education in managing such conditions during their training, either in the hospital or a community setting," explained Dr Inam Haq, a specialist registrar in rheumatology at the Middlesex Hospital, who will run the programme.
"GPs are understandably not very confident in dealing with musculoskeletal problems in primary care, and patients therefore feel they are not being treated properly, and seek a hospital opinion."
The new three-year training programme, funded by a grant of nearly £130,000 by medical research charity the Arthritis Research Campaign, will recruit 50 GPs to attend four workshops, covering practical topics to help them to manage common musculo-skeletal problems, such as knee and shoulder pain.
Both doctors and their patients will be assessed before and after the workshops, to assess the impact of the training programme on GP confidence and skill, and on patient care and management. The frequent failure of GPs to refer patients with arthritis to a rheumatologist will also be examined.
If the study is proven to help GPs provide a better service, similar workshops could be run in other parts of the country.
A spokeswoman for the Arthritis Research Campaign said that arthritis patients' most common complaint to the charity was that they were fobbed off by their GPs, who did not take their condition seriously.
"This new training programme is one of many ways in which we are continually trying to improve patient care, by promoting rheumatology training among medical students, junior doctors and in academic researchers and GPs. Patients have a right to be properly diagnosed and treated for a condition they will have to live with for the rest of their lives," she said.
The ARC spent £21.8m funding more than 350 research projects over the past 12 months. Its ultimate aim is to eradicate all forms of arthritis and rheumatic disease. It also runs an extensive patient information programme.
