Social Case-work in General Practice: An Alternative Approach

During a two-year period a senior case-worker was seconded by a voluntary family case-work agency, the Liverpool Personal Service Society, to work with three general practitioners. The commonest reasons for referral of the 157 new patients to the social worker over this study period were extreme poverty; housing, matrimonial, and psychiatric problems; and problems of fatherless families. The successful and valuable co-operation between the general practitioners, case-worker, and various specialist professional and financial services of the Society have proved that a professional social worker has an important role in the general-practice team.     

General Practice Observed: Survey of General Practice Records

A study of a sample of records from eight general practices showed that 10% of patients'' ages were not recorded, that 99% of males had no indication of their marital state, and 60% did not have an occupation recorded. In recording of disease episodes a diagnosis was recorded in a little over half of the episodes and was the only recorded item in 10% of records. The recording of the therapeutic agent used was the most frequently recorded item, occurring in 70% of episodes, but the amount prescribed was recorded in only one-quarter of the episodes and the dosage in less than one-fifth. Less than half of the episodes had any symptoms recorded and only one-third had a physical sign recorded.