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The radiological department has, up to now, been mainly restricted to investigations
to bones and joints, chests and sinuses. A larger X-ray machine is about to be installed and
the range of examinations will be extended; 1,800 were carried out during the year
(table iv).
An electrocardiography service has been started during the year and to date 277 requests
have been dealt with. The investigations are carried out by the radiographer and the results
interpreted by the consultant physician.
The allergy service is also one which has been started during the year and 125 patients
have so far been investigated. Skin sensitisation tests are very time consuming, taking
anything up to one hour to carry out and this service should be of assistance to busy general
practitioners.
Other facilities—In addition to diagnostic facilities, the Centre provides specially designed
and fully equipped rooms in which general practitioners can carry out minor operations
or intensive investigations to their own patients with the assistance of trained nursing
staff; 133 operations have been carried out during the year.
Nursing treatments, dressings and injections ordered by the general practitioner are
carried out for him by the nursing staff. 280 patients were dealt with during the year, many
of them attending a number of times, the total number of treatments given being 1,208.
An important feature of the Centre is the Common Room, where doctors can meet,
study the wide range of medical periodicals and consult the reference library and information
service which is being built up. Many large medical conferences have been held here
and lunchtime meetings for general practitioners, which are held every six weeks or so,
have proved to be very popular, with an average attendance of over 50 each time. A tape
recording on a subject of medical interest to family doctors is played, followed by a discussion
led by a specialist in the subject; these have included discussions on cardiac
emergencies, the coroner and the general practitioner, and speech disorders in neurological
disease.
Liaison with local health authority services is maintained by the health visitor for the
immediate area, who works from an office in the Centre; 28 requests for assistance have
been made to her during the year. It is hoped that her work in the Centre will increase and
will stimulate closer contact between family doctors and local health authority staff in
the area.
Other activities of the Centre
Research—A few research projects have been started and others are in the planning
stage, but the first year has mainly been used to gain experience on which to assess what
might be the potential of the Centre in this field and all clinical and statistical records have
been designed with the possibility of research in mind. Some subjects for research suggest
themselves from the ordinary routine work of the Centre. There are, for example, a number
of Africans and West Indians living in the area and special records are being kept of those
who attend the Centre, which it is hoped may be of use in studying morbidity in those
groups. The Centre is also able to collect information for other organisations undertaking
research, such as the recording for the purposes of a survey being carried out by the College
of General Practitioners of persons who have had measles.
Undergraduate education—In the first year it was not practicable to start a formal
scheme for undergraduate education but consideration has been given to the ways in which
the Centre can participate in the instruction of senior medical students in the art and
performance of general practice. It seems probable that this would consist of co-ordinating
schemes involving students and local general practitioners and of organising lectures and
case conferences at the Centre in which students, general practitioners, social workers and
nursing officers could take part.
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