Understandthe roles of people who work in health and social; care settings, to include:Doctors: when people are unwell, thefirst person they call with the medical profession will mainly be the general practitioner (GP). GPsoffer ongoing care for individuals in the environment. This includes: · Caringfor people who are sick, including delivery simple surgical procedures. · Providingpreventative care and healtheducation for service users.
GPsare mostly based in local health centre, working with other doctors and varioustypes of health and care professionals, for example, nurses, health visitorsand counsellors. GPs can refer people to hospital specialists (consultants) ora different professional for further testing and treatment such as x-rays,blood tests or to social workers for social care support.Themain responsibilities of doctors in treating illnesses are to:· Diagnosean individual’s illnesses and ailments.· Discussand agree an individual treatment plan.· Prescribeappropriate medication or treatment.
· Monitorthe impact of the agreed treatment.Thepreventative care and health education services offer include: · Vaccinationprogrammes for people of all ages.· Healtheducation and advice on issues, for example, smoking, alcohol consumption andhealthy eating. Hospitaldoctors offer specialist medical care. In the UK and Republic of Ireland, consultant is the name of asenior, hospital based doctor who specialises in a particular field of medicineand control difficult cases. To have this care, the consultant usually leads ateam of junior doctors/ this includes newly qualified and more experienceddoctors (registrars).
Consultants are mainlyknown by the name of their specialist field, for example:· Cardiologistsspecialise in treating heart disease.· Psychiatristsspecialise in treating mental health problems.· Oncologistsspecialise in treating cancer.· Paediatriciansspecialise in treating children.· Geriatriciansspecialise in treating older people.