Primary health care for vulnerable migrants
20/10/11
A session at the Royal College of General
Practitioners’ (RCGP) Annual Conference this week will explore the
challenges faced by refugees and asylum seekers in obtaining good
primary care and how services can be designed to care for them more
effectively.
GPs with a proven track record in developing robust services for
vulnerable patients such as asylum seekers will set out the vital
importance of good medical report writing to document the physical
and psychological consequences of torture or other trauma as part
of the patient’s medico-legal report.
Delegates will learn about more ways to overcome language and
cultural barriers and the specific health needs of vulnerable
migrants, including mental health care, to help patients deal with
experiences such as witnessing killings and torture, forced
displacement, material disadvantage and multiple losses.
The session, 'A denial of care? Primary health care for
vulnerable migrants', will be chaired by Dr Gilles de Wildt from
the RCGP Health Inequalities Group.
It will be presented on Friday 21 October at 2.00 pm by:
- Dr Angela Burnett - a GP at the Greenhouse Practice Hackney, a
dedicated service for homeless people, asylum seekers, refugees,
migrants and other vulnerable populations and lead doctor at the
Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture.
- Dr Alison Callaway - lead GP in a practice for refugees and
asylum seekers in Coventry. In 2008 she assisted the BMA in
revising their guidelines for doctors writing medical reports on
asylum applicants.
- Dr Charmian Goldwyn - has now been involved with 250 detainees,
and together with the staff and other doctors at Medical Justice
has brought about improvement of their health care.
- Lisa Hill - works for Sandwell PCT leading on the development
of an integrated primary care mental health and wellbeing
model.
- Dr Ian Walton - Chair of Primary Mental Health and Education
(primhe) and an honorary lecturer at Staffordshire University where
he teaches the RCGP accredited masters and advanced diploma courses
in Primary Care Mental Health.
ENDS
Further information
RCGP Press office – 020 3188 7574/7575/7576
Out of hours: 0203 188 7659
press@rcgp.org.uk
Notes to editors
The Royal College of General Practitioners is a network of more
than 44,000 family doctors working to improve care for patients. We
work to encourage and maintain the highest standards of general
medical practice and act as the voice of GPs on education,
training, research and clinical standards.