| Dr Andrew Buist, a GP in Blairgowrie and a member of the British Medical Association’s GP Committee Scotland, was responding to claims around the level of alcohol and drug abuse among doctors.
BMA research indicates that one in 15 doctors will have problems with drug and alcohol at some point in their lifetime.
“Doctors have a duty to look after their health and particularly if that is felt to be interfering with their ability to provide good care to their patients,” said Dr Buist.
“There is a duty on individuals to seek help if they recognise they have a health problem which would include drugs or alcohol dependence.
“Alternatively, if we suspect a colleague of having such a problem there is also a duty on us as practitioners not to turn a blind eye but to take that forward.”
Doctors have very formal disciplinary processes operated by the General Medical Council that has the ultimate sanction of preventing a doctor from working.
However, for the last two years, GPs in Tayside have also had access to a less formal system that aims to support doctors with problems rather than punish them.
Dr Buist is a member of a high-level, three-man group that deals with such cases.
The team also includes NHS Tayside’s director of primary care Dr Andrew Russell and director of postgraduate education David Bruce. Dr Buist explained that even “vague concerns” could be brought to the group and considered by the three-man team.
He said the “mechanism” had only been used once or twice a year and never in relation to drug and alcohol problems. The system existed to deal with all types of medical problem relating to doctors, such as mental illness and depression that could be “interfering” with a person’s ability to care for patients.
“We decide if the medical practitioner needs medical help him or herself,” said Dr Buist. “If possible we go down the help route rather than punishment in the first instance.
“Protecting patients is paramount and, if we believe that an individual doctor was putting the health of their patients at risk, we would prefer, in the first instance, to take the doctor out of direct patient contact by taking them in to a treatment rather than a punishment situation.
“In these circumstances the individual will be able to get back to helping patients when they themselves are better.”
He said that if there were a time when a doctor refused help, the team would have to “go down a more disciplinary route”.
“We have not had to do that yet,” said Dr Buist. |
