Kids shunning GPs for specialists

THE number of Victorian children referred to specialist doctors has jumped by 90 per cent over the past decade.

Doctor listening to heart with stethoscope. Child. Kid. Children. Health. Dr. Generic image. Thinkstock.

THE number of Victorian children referred to specialist doctors has jumped by 90 per cent over the past decade.

This has prompted a study to uncover if parents are driving demand or GPs are not confident in treating young patients.

With parents more commonly bypassing the GP and making hospital emergency departments their first stop for sick children, specialist doctors are also seeing an unprecedented number of children.

Last financial year, the Royal Children’s Hospital held more than 243,000 specialist appointments.

Professor Gary Freed, who has been brought from the US by the RCH and University of Melbourne to study Victoria’s paediatric hospital presentations, said the growth of specialist appointments was far exceeding the proportional population growth of children.

“GPs are seeing a smaller proportion of children in practice, so we don’t know if GPs are becoming less comfortable and confident in the care of children, so they may be referring more frequently,” Prof Freed said.

“We also know GP registrars are also seeing fewer children, so they may be leaving their training with less confidence. We also don’t know if parents are driving the increase in referrals because they believe their child needs speciality care. It’s striking how little we know about referrals for children.”

The study will quiz 200 GPs about whether they make referrals to get a second opinion or for the other doctor to assume care of that child, and for them to rate how confident they feel treating children.

More than 300 parents, whose child has been referred to either the RCH or Monash Children’s for a specialist clinic appointment in the respiratory, endocrinology, neurology and behavioural departments, will be asked what they expect from a referral.

“Anecdotally, we’ve heard from many sub-specialists that a large proportion of referrals really don’t need to see them. We want to test those anecdotes,” he said.

“We want to make sure we have the capacity in sub-specialty care for children who really need it.”

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