Medical care in Britain is about to change and those now entering general practice and many specialist disciplines will work through the greatest transformation in service provision since the foundation of the NHS in 1948. One part of that change will be in the decentralisation of responsibilities for organising services, and the other part - which is the theme of this book - will be the blurring of boundaries between generalists and specialists, between primary and secondary care.
Shared Care of Older People aims to provide a concise and practical guide to aid understanding of the most common and important areas of medicine of old age. Presented as a set of self-contained 'bite-sized' chapters - written in the form of clinical cases - that can be read in order, or more likely dipped into at different stages, each of the chapters can be used for reference when dealing with a particular patient's problems or as the basis of exam preparation or a tutorial. Throughout the book, emphasis is placed on integrated and practical clinical management in the community by the primary care team and appropriate sharing of care with hospital specialists.