Thorax 1999;54:925-928
( October )
Review series
Issues at the interface between primary and secondary care in the management of common respiratory disease 
4
Providing better care for patients who may have pneumonia
William F Holmesa, Mark Woodheadb
a Sherrington Park
Medical Practice, 402 Mansfield Road, Nottingham NG5 2EJ, UK, b Department of Respiratory Medicine,
Manchester Royal Infirmary, Manchester M13 9WL, UK
Correspondence to: Dr W F Holmes.
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
 |
Introduction |
"It is not as easy to elicit abnormal physical signs in a
bedroom of traditional English winter temperature as in a well heated hospital ward."1
Pneumonia is common throughout the world, and although its presentation
to health care services will vary, many of the difficulties which
physicians and patients face are common. This paper deals with meeting
this challenge within the British National Health Service (NHS) but the
issues discussed have implications for other health care systems.
Pneumonia accounts for 5-12% of all cases of lower respiratory tract
infections which UK general practitioners (GPs) treat with
antibiotics.2 Based on prospective studies,3
a British GP with an average list of 2000 patients would expect to see
4-12 cases of community acquired pneumonia (CAP) per year and to
manage most of them at home. Annually in the UK there are some 250 000 episodes of CAP, about one third of which (approximately 83 000 patients) . . . [Full text of this article]
