Skip Navigation


Journal of Public Health Advance Access originally published online on July 10, 2007
Journal of Public Health 2007 29(3):288-291; doi:10.1093/pubmed/fdm043
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
29/3/288    most recent
fdm043v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in ISI Web of Science
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Disclaimer
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Day, F.
Right arrow Articles by Sutton, G.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Day, F.
Right arrow Articles by Sutton, G.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2007, Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Faculty of Public Health. All rights reserved

General practitioner notifications of gastroenteritis and food poisoning: cause for concern



Fiona Day, Specialist Registrar1,

Graham Sutton, Consultant in Communicable Disease Control2
1 Leeds PCT, North West House, West Park Ring Road, Leeds LS16 6QG, UK
2 West Yorkshire Health Protection Unit, Health Protection Agency, UK

Address correspondence to Fiona Day, E-mail: fiona.day{at}leedspct.nhs.uk


  Abstract

Background Under the Public Health (Infectious Diseases) Regulations 1988, all doctors are required by law to notify suspected cases of specific infections and food poisoning. Doctors' propensity to notify is known to be low, and we sought to quantify this locally.

Methods From July 2000 to June 2002, we conducted a baseline audit of notifications by Wakefield GPs of cases of suspected gastrointestinal infection or food poisoning. We repeated the audit during 2005–06, following a series of local interventions to improve notification.

Results The baseline audit demonstrated considerable variation in reporting behaviour and timeliness of notification. Following the re-audit, we found that notification rates and timeliness had not improved, indeed they had deteriorated.

Conclusion We suggest that the current notification system is not working in respect of gastroenteritis and food poisoning, and should be either substantially revised or abandoned.

Keywords: disease notification, gastroenteritis, food poisoning, sentinel surveillance


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer:
Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.