Welcome to the latest edition of Practice Matters Ireland, a magazine for the whole practice team.

General practice today can seem like a pretty risky business. The Medical Council has recently revealed that it received 423 complaints against doctors in 2012, representing a 12% increase from 2011. In addition, we are seeing historically high levels of claims against GPs in Ireland, at a time when resources and finances are as stretched as they have ever been.

If you do receive a complaint, an instinctive reaction might be to remove a patient from the practice list, but this can serve to make things worse. Our checklist sets out the reasonable times to end the doctor–patient relationship and how you should go about it.

This edition also takes a look at the risks associated with out of hours care. Read all about Northdoc’s experience of an MPS OOHs risk assessment.

We hope you enjoy this edition and would be interested to hear your comments, as well as any topics you would like us to feature in future editions.

Dr George Fernie 
Editor-in-Chief, MPS Senior Medicolegal Adviser