UK: If pandemic strikes, avoid doctor and get a 'flu buddy'

[Guest guest]

What does this conjure up in the mind...? ;o)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/jan/08/health-nhs

If pandemic strikes, avoid doctor and get a 'flu buddy'

Guidelines to GPs say drugs could be accessed by phone

Boseley, health editor

Guardian.co.UK, Thursday 8 January 2009 13.45 GMT

People with flu symptoms would be told to stay away from their GP if a

genuine pandemic were to break out in the UK and will have to rely on a

telephone helpline for advice and drugs, doctors said yesterday .

Although more people are suffering from flu at the moment than in the past

few winters, the current outbreaks in the UK are still thought unlikely to

reach pandemic severity. Pandemics are triggered by new strains of flu virus

to which nobody in the population is immune.

At the launch of their guidelines for GPs yesterday, experts from the Royal

College of GPs and the British Medical Association said that if a pandemic

takes off some time in the future, public information campaigns would warn

patients to stay away from the GP surgery, even though that would make

access to anti-viral drugs, which could reduce the severity of a flu bout,

more difficult.

Anyone with flu symptoms would be told to phone a national flu helpline. If

the nurse taking the call believed they had flu,the caller could be

prescribed drugs after supplying their NHS number and other identification.

Since the patient would be too ill to leave the house, the prescription

could be collected by a " flu buddy " – a friend or family member the patient

nominates, who must have the patient's identification details.

All of this has to take place within 48 hours of the onset of the flu

symptoms, otherwise the drugs do not work.

But the doctors are adamant that such a system would be necessary in the

case of a pandemic, or GPs would be swamped by all those turning up at their

surgeries for drugs. " There is no route into an anti-viral by seeing a

doctor, " said Dr Holden of the BMA's GPs committee.

Dr Maureen Baker, from the Royal College, recognised that the helpline

system might create difficulties for some people, especially those who don't

have a friend or family member ready to drop everything and collect a

prescription for drugs from a distribution centre. " It is a very big problem

" she said. " There are lots of people who live alone, lots of people who

live in big cities who don't have social contacts. It is about all pulling

together. "

Another problem is that many people do not know their NHS number, the

doctors said. Informing people of the steps they would need to take,

including how to find out their NHS number and nominating a " flu buddy " ,

would be part of a government information campaign should pandemic flu break

out.

But those who think they will get hold of a supply of drugs by phoning the

helpline pretending they are ill will also be thwarted, said the doctors -

because nobody will ever be prescribed the drugs more than once.

The comprehensive guidelines will go to every GP in the UK, who will be

urged to make preparations for a pandemic before it happens. GPs normally

run their practices like individual businesses. In a pandemic, they would

come under the direct command and control of the health authorities. They

would be told they must make arrangements with other practices so that

doctors would be available should any practice have to close because of

staff sickness. Retired GPs would be brought in to help, by signing death

certificates, for example, to relieve the pressure on those who are still

working.

The guidance anticipates that some people with flu symptoms would still turn

up at surgeries, and doctors are advised to consider segregating them in a

separate waiting room.

The last flu pandemic occurred in 1968/69 and reached a high of over 700

cases per 100,000 people in the population. In the last few weeks, flu cases

diagnosed by doctors have reached68.5 cases per 100,000, less than a tenth

of that rate.

The latest figure, released yesterday by the Royal College from reports by

GPs, was 51 per 100,000. Professor Steve Field, chairman of the college,

said it looked as though flu had peaked, but added that there had been a

rise in cases of bronchitis, which can be a complication of flu, that would

put pressure on hospitals.

" Some bronchitis ends up as pneumonia, and can come after flu or be caused by

other infections, " he said. " Most cold and flu-like symptoms can be managed by

looking after yourself, but in some cases bronchitis will require

hospitalisation. "