Your feedback

On this page you can see your feedback to our polls and surveys in July. Your feedback will be taken into account during the Review of Good Medical Practice.

Can individual doctors make a difference?

In July we asked you:

• “Doctors in ordinary clinical roles make little difference to health inequalities. Political interventions in social and public health policy are the only effective way to bring about significant change”. Do you agree?

Thank you to everyone who took part - we received 36 responses which expressed a wide range of ideas about the role doctors can play within our society in terms of reducing inequalities. 75% of you did not agree with the statement we posed and thought that individual doctors can make a difference.

Here are some of the comments you submitted in full:

• 'Just like 99 pence does not make a pound, I think that the effort, opinions and actions of every single doctor in the United Kingdom count. Cynicism and learned helplessness must not be allowed to seep into our psyche. I know it is tough not to be positive but the are extraordinary times that need extraordinary solutions.'
• 'Doctors make huge difference to individual patients and through that they make huge difference to the family, friends and society as a whole. But doctors as individuals can not and will not make any difference to health inequalities as they are due to poverty, unemployment, life style and many other socio-economic and political issues and individual choices.'
• 'I agree that doctors can make little difference to health inequalities, because it is often much too late for the patient/service user by the time they have reached the stage of meeting a doctor. The appointment with the doctor will generally be used to treat the effect and not deal with the cause.  However, I disagree that change can come from a high up, political level. I think change needs to come from a local perspective and should be led by joint work by local NHS Trusts, Local Authorities and the Third Sector.'
• 'Doctors in ordinary clinical roles can have a huge impact if they communicate with understanding, empathy, compassion providing safe and sound advice; as they are often seen as a trusted member of society.'

Julia's Day: Episode Two

More than 650 of you voted on what our fictional GP should do, after reading about her ethical dilemma at the end of Episode two.

You can view the full poll results by clicking on the feedback tab on the Julia's Day page.

Don't forget...

...to take part in this month's activity and sign up to our email updates to stay in touch with the review.