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BBC Radio 5 Live

5 live Investigates

5 Live Investigates

Factual: Consumer

Adrian Goldberg presents cutting edge investigative journalism

Adrian Goldberg presents cutting edge investigative journalism, as well as taking on listeners' campaigns and consumer issues

5 Live Investigates: GPs Refuse to Visit Care Homes

11/03/2012

GPs Refuse to Visit Care Homes

BBC Radio 5 Live - 5 Live Investigates, GPs Refuse to Visit Care Homes

GPs are refusing to leave the surgery to visit ailing residents of care homes.

GPs are refusing to visit ailing residents of care homes and are prescribing medication over the phone. Campaigners say it is treating the elderly as second-class citizens.

The ailing care home residents who struggle to get a GP to visit - instead medication is prescribed over the phone. In some cases, care homes even pay GPs to provide what's decsribed as 'enhanced' services such as routine check-ups to people with complex medical problems. One nurse manager tells 5 Live Investigates that GPs who charge should be ashamed of themselves - challenging them to ring in and explain why they do it.
We talk to the man who blew the whistle on the fraud at Autofocus - the self-style 'expert witnesses' who fabricated evidence when the insurance industry challenged the high costs of car hire. It led to the loss of 300 job in Steve Evans' company Accident Exchange, and could be as much as 200 million pounds losses in the credit hire industry.
And the teething problems around the clampdown on disabled parking bad fraud.

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