3/11/12, "Care home residents 'denied basic GP medical services'," BBC
"Some doctors are refusing to visit elderly care home residents, a BBC investigation has found.
Instead they are offering a diagnosis over the phone which care home managers say is unsatisfactory and dangerous.
In one case, care home records show a GP refused or reluctantly made a visit to a man suffering from pneumonia on three occasions.
The British Medical Association told the BBC it agreed the quality of care given to care homes could vary.
Debbie Dean told the BBC's Radio 5 live Investigates programme that her family struggled to get a GP to come out to see her 71-year-old father as he lay suffering from pneumonia in a care home in Stoke-on-Trent....
Martin Green, from the English Community Care Association, a group representing the owners of care homes, believes up to one third of residents could be missing out on the full range of GP services they are entitled to.
"There is really bad practice out there. We have got to get out of the habit of saying 'there's some good practice'," he told BBC Radio 5 live.
"There are islands of good practice in a sea of bad practice. If you are paid to do a job, you should be doing it.
"If we had better quality of care, then older people wouldn't get into crisis and end up in A&E."."...
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