title: Specialist community palliative care services--a survey of general practitioners' experience in Eastern Sydney.
abstract: The role of the general practitioner (GP) in providing palliative care in the community is of increasing importance. Concomitantly, there is more interaction between the palliative care support services and the GP. Even when there is input from the palliative care support services, there can be barriers that impede effective delivery of palliative care by the GP. These include poor communication between the GP and the supporting team, inaccessibility of the service and inadequate after-hours coverage. We carried out a postal survey to assess what experiences and perceptions GPs working within the Eastern Sydney Area had of our palliative care support service. The response was generally favourable, with most GPs finding the level of communication, accessibility, usefulness of advice given and degree of follow-up visits by the service to be adequate. However, an important number felt that we tended to over-hospitalise our patients.
authors.affiliation: Department of Palliative Care, Prince of Wales Hospital, Randwick, NSW, Australia.
authors.forename: J A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Low
authors.forename: R K
authors.initials: RK
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Strutt
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Chye
mesh_terms: D003153:Community Health Services / Q000458:organization & administration*; D005194:Family Practice / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D008511:Medicine; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000628:therapy*; D009517:New South Wales; D010166:Palliative Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D010865:Pilot Projects; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians' / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D013038:Specialization; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires