Developing a young person’s leaflet for general practices
F.H. Donaldson (1), J.A. Donaldson (2)
3rd year Medical Student, University of Edinburgh, UK (1); General
Practitioner, Ottershaw Surgery, Surrey, UK (2)
Objective: UK General Practices and Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) are
currently inundated with work to implement the GMS II Contract. Improving access
to Primary Care for young people is therefore of low priority and poorly
resourced. In order to correct this important deficit we set out to develop a
Young Person’s Leaflet for our practice in a format which is not only useful
and acceptable to our own patients but also easy to adopt by other practices.
The leaflet promotes information about and access to holistic health and sexual
advice for young people in line with the ‘Confidentiality and Young People’
initiative.
Design and Method: An extensive local search and national enquiries
via the National Primary Care Development Team failed to reveal any previous
example of a similar leaflet. We therefore researched and designed our
prototype, ‘The Ottershaw Surgery Young Person’s Guide’ which we launched
in July 2003 to coincide with the 13th birthday of our surgery. Subsequently we
sought feedback from Our patients – young (9–25 yrs) and older (mostly their
parents).Local GP’s, practice and PCT staff, Connexions Surrey and Health
Promotion staff, Surrey Youth Council: 14 – 19 yr olds.
Results: Feedback was so universally enthusiastic that we were
encouraged to develop the leaflet in the light of this! We have converted it to
a web-based format to be uploaded onto N Surrey PCT website (www.nsurreypct.nhs.uk)
and West Surrey Health Community website (www.west-surrey.nhs.uk). We have
included a separate Word Document with a list of local services throughout West
Surrey (i.e. 3 local PCT’s areas) which can be selected as appropriate by
individual practices. Our Health Promotion Specialist (Sexual Health) and
Teenage Pregnancy Facilitator will work with the PCTs to encourage all practices
to download, personalise and print this leaflet for their own use.
Conclusion: Developing a Young Person’s Leaflet for General Practice
in an acceptable and informative format is both popular and achievable. This can
be easily modified for use nationwide by General Practices and PCTs.
