General practitioners in North Wales: current experiences of palliative care

Much work on the role of general practitioners within palliative care has f ocused on those working in densely populated inner city areas. This study w as undertaken to evaluate the provision of palliative care and training nee ds of general practitioners in North Wales, a predominantly rural area. Que stionnaires were sent to all 240 GPs and 94 responded (40%); those GPs resp onding were younger and mainly worked within partnerships. During the prece ding year a median of four terminally ill patients had been cared for by ea ch GP (range 0-21). General practitioners believed that palliative care was an important part of their role and applicable to patients with all end st age diseases. Use was made of community hospital beds as these were perceiv ed as being more convenient for the patients and allowed the GPs to continu e their involvement in patient care. Where services-e.g. palliative care co nsultants, day care and Marie Curie care-is available this was perceived as being very useful and of benefit. General practitioners believed they woul d benefit from further education and teaching on all aspects of palliative care, and this was supported by just over 50% of doctors knowing the correc t breakthrough doses of morphine and many stating they would not prescribe more than a certain dose of opiates. Training in palliative care during voc ational training was poor or non-existent and a preference was expressed fo r experiential teaching.