Check your home medicine cabinet, say Oxford doctors
Patients could take more responsibility for their own health.
Phillip Hunt - 10 November 2012
Many people could deal with far more minor health ailments at home, according to a survey of over 100 GPs undertaken for Self Care Week (12th-18th November 2012) by the Self Care Forum. In this (albeit limited) survey, 98% of GP respondents believe that patients could take more responsibility for their own health.
The problem, it seems, is that most people have not checked the contents of their home medicine cabinet in a while, if they have one at all. The survey found that 90% of GPs thought patients had a poorly stocked medicine cabinet in need of an overhaul, with 83% also believing that patients should have a healthcare guide at home.
“Around 20% of patients don’t need to see a doctor and are wasting their own time booking an appointment to ask for medication for minor ailments,” says Dr Richard Stevens, a GP from East Oxford Health Centre in Oxford. “They could easily treat themselves from their own medicine cabinet.”
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