Medical waste
Sir: Susan Hill’s article (‘Patient, heal thyself’, 29 June) dealt only with the unnecessary visits to GPs for minor ailments. In Wales we have an extra incentive to waste GPs’ time — all prescriptions are free. There are many people who are prepared to make a GP appointment just to get routine medicines for free, and GPs are powerless to resist.
Tim Johnson
Aberystwyth, Ceredigion
Sir: Susan Hill’s article revived pleasant memories of my stint as a locum general practitioner in the early 1970s in Goring-by-Sea. As the registered patient number of the solo practice was the maximum allowable by the NHS at the time, I was puzzled to find that my workload ranged from half to one hour daily. The local pharmacist eventually explained that the prior principal had been a long-time cardiac invalid: local folk were reluctant to trouble the poor doctor and had got into the habit of going straight to Worthing Hospital Casualty.
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