Claim A&Es suffer from ‘lazy’ GP referrals

DOCTORS in emergency medicine are concerned GPs may be referring patients to emergency departments (EDs) after charging them for “treatment”, but not always providing it, a leading clinician has warned.

Dr Chris Luke, a consultant in emergency medicine at the Mercy University Hospital (MUH) in Cork city, said one of many factors in ED overcrowding is inappropriate referrals by GPs.

“We see patients more or less daily who are inappropriately referred with long-term ailments which really belong in out-patient clinics or other facilities in the health service. And part of the reason they [GPs] don’t refer them to these facilities is a shortage of such facilities, for example, the shortage of neurologists nationally, but some of these referrals just look lazy,” Dr Luke said.