Post-it referral report

From Dr Chris Langdon, Maidenhead, Berkshire

Through Choose and Book, a patient of mine elected to go to a hospital not particularly close to where she lives. She was seen in the neurology clinic last month. She came to see me four days later bearing a Post-it note (right) informing me that the hospital doctor had told her to ask me to prescribe this drug.

It took me quite a while to decipher the writing (although I have had much practice) whereupon I discovered this was a drug I have never even heard of. In addition, it is contraindicated in asthma, which my patient has.

As a GP approaching retirement, I am appalled by the service we are getting from secondary care. I suspect hospital doctors' hands are tied and they cannot prescribe for the patients they see. I rue

the day when patients came away from the out-patient department with their first two weeks' supply of medication. Hospital practices these days are shoddy, inefficient and downright unethical. The strain this is putting on GPs is increasing almost daily and becoming intolerable.

I am sending a copy to the LMC and hope it might spark local and national debate.

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