[joglynne]

It may not be the best way but I don't like the alternatives that I have been able to come up with.

Have all the people who are thought to have Swine Flu going into the GP surgeries or A & E?....... Even if I ignore the risks to other member of the general public of having people suffering with SW coming into a surgery or hospital, what about the staff and Doctors they could infect and put out of action?

Have the GPs visit all the identified cases in their own homes? ......I doubt many practices have the spare GP capacity to cope with the increased home visits that would entail.

Have Doctors answering the phones...How would my GP cope with the increase of calls and would I be willing, or in any position, to wait to see him whilst he dealt with all the calls.

Even if we had enough Doctors to staff special centers how would a Doctor know that he was being told the truth when the symptoms of the SF are so widely known and the Doctor would have to err on the safe side? I don't imagine that they would have to follow a script so just how long would each phone consultation have to be to cover all bases? I doubt whether we would be able to have less Doctors answering the phones than the numbers of non-medically trained people being currently used.

I accept that there will be cases that are wrongly identified as Swine Flu, and I do think that certain at risk groups should be seen by a Doctor, but I understood that the scripts the centers use do attempt to identify these people and refer them to their Doctors.

What other ways could so many people be dealt with? I hope that the current effects of the flu continues to be relatively mild for most people but that could change at any time and at least this way we have something in place that can be honed to cope over the next few months.