Bureaucracy is the bane of modern living. It sometimes seems that form-filling and box-ticking has taken on a life of its own – and, of course, this has infiltrated the world of medicine. The working hours of doctors and nurses are now dominated not by patients, but by pieces of paper.
Clinical staff interviewed for a Government review published last week said they spent up to 10 hours a week collecting or checking data, and that more than one third of the work was neither useful nor relevant to patient care. The review from the NHS Confederation, which represents health service managers, blamed duplication and poor use of technology for staff wasting their time in this way.
Many will be shocked that so much time is spent on paperwork, rather than caring for the sick, but I’m amazed that it is apparently so little. I frequently feel I am drowning in forms to be completed, statistics to be gathered and boxes to be ticked. I trained to be a doctor because I wanted to work with people, not complete forms that have no tangible, meaningful impact on the patient.
Every clinician I know feels the same. I work in a hospital providing tertiary care to people with severe, complex mental health problems. I will typically see patients for 30 minutes to an hour. For every patient I see, I have at least one hour of paperwork to do.
Some of this has a clear benefit to the patient. I spend a long time, for example, writing detailed letters to GPs providing in-depth history and patient treatment plans.
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