Losing patients

A London conference has been looking at ways of ridding the health service of pesky patients, but Maurice Gueret is not impressed with the substitutes

Patient No More

A conference affected with a grand title like ‘People Powered Health’ is just the sort that I might avoid. One such event was held recently in London. My non-attendance may have been a good call. The powerful people of health were discussing ways of ridding the health service of patients. Not in the extermination sense of the word, but in the literal sense. Moves are afoot to call patients something else entirely. The word ‘patient’ derives from Latin, meaning ‘one who suffers’. The clipboard classes are anxious to give a less dolorous title to those who clog up waiting lists for years. Privateer medicine types would like to call you a customer, service user, or client. Oldfashioned doctors might prefer to call you a sickie, an invalid, a valetudinarian, or, simply, a case. HSE types prefer stakeholder, partner, guest or healthcare consumer. Some private patients might prefer to be known as the purchaser, buyer or patron. If we have to get rid of loyal patients who have amused and served us well for centuries, the best suggestion I’ve seen so far is Coalition of the Unwilling. When I’m sick myself, a first name combined with an adjective to elicit immediate sympathy rings all the right bells. In my hour of need, call me poor Mossy.

Boy’s Turn

The HPV vaccine is a jab that prevents you getting common types of genital wart. The World Health Organisation recommends that girls aged between 9 and 13 receive the HPV vaccine, as the most cost-effective public health measure against cancer of the cervix. About 70 countries now provide it for girls. This summer, Ireland took a step towards being one of the first places in the world to vaccinate boys, too. In Australia, where the vaccine was first developed, the vaccine has been given free to schoolboys since 2013. The UK may be about to follow some pharmacies there are already vaccinating teenage boys for about £300 a course. Health minister Simon Harris has asked HIQA to conduct a health technology assessment on the vaccine. They will be looking at the cost of extending the scheme to males, and asking whether it’s right to immunise boys to protect girls down the road. If the answer is yes, and the cost-benefit and safety data is all in order, then the principal of immunising the whole herd may be followed. Anal and penile cancer are risks for men with genital warts, but they are low risk. The Australian experience suggests that genital warts, and some of the nastier diseases they can spawn, may be driven from our shores.

GP Collection

The value of your prescription to pharmacies cannot be understated. Many establishments will now text you when your medicines are labelled and in the bag. Others will call to your house to collect scripts. Some even offer to drop off supplies when it’s not possible for you to make it down to the shop. Last week, I came across a new scheme called the GP Collection Service. At first glance, I thought the local chemist was offering to collect doctors from the golf club late on Wednesday evenings, when some might be a tad emotional after the prizegiving. Alas, it’s only our prescriptions they are after. Caddy cars and prizes will just have to walk home as usual.

Exocet Heart

I am fascinated at how clinical language is finding its way more and more into political debate. Over in France, they are being conditioned for a plan to tackle the country’s crippling debt. President Macron’s new prime minister said this month said that public spending was an addiction, and like all addictions, it doesn’t solve any of the problems it is meant to ease. He went on to say that like all addictions, it will take willpower and courage to detox the French public from public spending. Nice try. After the recent UK election, the language was more sinister. Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith said that getting rid of Theresa May would be akin to the Conservative party writing a suicide note. Nick Clegg, the former Liberal leader who lost his safe seat, said, cryptically, that if you live by the sword, you die by the sword. And the Tory culture minister said that the party’s badly thought-out plan on nursing-home care was like shooting an Exocet missile right through the heart of old people. You can tell a lot about folk from the strange similes they come up with. Perhaps the culture minister should be in defence.