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Samuel Willis describes the value of stories - telling them and listening to them. It creates bonds and humanises the teller and listener.
NICE standard covers referral and assessment for intermediate care. It covers bed-based intermediate care, crisis response, home-based intermediate care and reablement. It describes high-quality care in priority areas for improvement.
The RCP Guidance on safe medical staffing aims to help those planning hospital services to answer: ‘How many doctors or their alternatives, with what capabilities, do we need to provide safe, timely and effective care for patients with medical problems?'.
A list of validated tools which may be useful in augmenting clinical history-taking as part of comprehensive geriatric assessment, or as screening tools to trigger the need for an in-depth assessment.
Focus on Physicians 2017-18 is the Royal College of Physicians, Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow’s most recent census on the consultant physician and higher specialty trainee workforce in the UK.
Physicians practising in general internal medicine (GIM) commonly manage illness in patients who may be in the last phase of their lives. It is therefore an important part of the specialist training programme to manage patient and family involvement.
The BGS works closely with the workforce team at RCP. Information on consultant numbers and other details such as projected retirements are taken from the annual RCP survey.
A quality improvement programme that uses specially trained nurses to introduce an evidence based care bundle to reduce inpatient falls
What is mental capacity? What do we really mean when we ask if a patient has (or lacks) capacity? Capacity often depends on context. The ethical conundrum of mental capacity unravelled.
Geriatrics is the largest specialty doing general medicine and providing acute medical care of patients admitted as emergencies. As general physicians, they share with other specialists in Acute/General Medicine the provision of the first 24-48 hours of emergency medical care of all adults.
Fracture services often fail to respond to the true complexity of their older patients’ needs. The Care of Patients with Fragility Fracture (the 'Blue Book', available as a download) sets out best practice in the care and prevention of fragility fractures.
Over 400,000 older people in the UK live in care homes, including nearly one in six over-85s, and they often have complex health and social care needs. We have produced guidance for commissioners to promote better models of medical care for care home residents.
Many of the residents are likely to have some degree of urinary incontinence or dysfunction. Urinary incontinence in this setting should not be viewed as inevitable. With good management it may be preventable. Incontinence is a symptom of underlying problems.
Older patients frequently have dysphagia resulting from acute or chronic illnesses. Dysphagia management requires a collaborative approach because of the complexities of older patients' needs, and geriatricians have an important role to play in overseeing this condition.
The Faculty of Dental Surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons of England is concerned about the significant impact that poor oral health is having on older people’s general health and quality of life.
Diabetes is the commonest metabolic long term condition in older people and is characterised by a high rate of vascular complications and subsequent disability, frequent hospital admissions, and increased institutionalisation.
Deconditioning and loss of functional abilities in frail older people may start soon after arriving in hospital. Many end up in a care home prematurely because of it. This campaign, with downloadable resources, aims to encourage patients to 'Sit up, get dressed, keep moving!'
This document outlines evidence for proactive care and support for older adults with moderate to severe frailty.
Information relating to the BGS Annual General Meeting.
Details on the process of submitting an abstract to a BGS meeting.