Online resources should offer more useful information

I RECENTLY flew on an American airline, and to pass away the tedious hours I picked up the in-flight magazine.

My interest was captured by a full-page advertisement displaying a portrait picture of a gynaecologist offering minimally invasive surgery techniques in Houston, Texas. Flicking further through the pages I discovered another article/advert concerning a new surgical approach to carpal tunnel syndrome called endoscopic carpal tunnel release.

Also in the magazine were adverts for robotic surgery (again in Texas), sales of human growth hormone treatments in New York and orthodontic work in Washington DC.

I am not advocating that we should follow the US in widespread advertising of medical services, but I was impressed by the availability of information and the pictures of the doctors involved. It is often helpful to know what the doctor you are going to see at the hospital looks like – indeed, whether the name on your appointment card is male or female.

It would also be helpful for GPs to know about consultants' special interests so that they can advise patients where best to seek specialist care. For instance who is the "go-to" guy for carpal tunnel syndrome in Glasgow and who has a specialist interest in retinal eye surgery in Grampian?

I decided to see if I could find any of this information on the websites of the Scottish health boards. I surfed Glasgow and Clyde, Lothian, Forth Valley, Western Isles and Grampian but could not find one picture of a consultant. There were pictures of board members together with potted histories, but a patient is never going to meet councillor so-and-so in the operating theatre light.

There was no information about individual consultants and I could not find which doctor had a special interest in carpal tunnel syndrome or retinal eye surgery.

I think it is time that we started to give patients the information they want on our NHS websites. Here is what I would start with:

• I would like to see pictures of all consultants and GPs with a brief resumé including their areas of special interest. Often, when I ask a patient who they saw at the hospital they cannot recall, or they know it was Dr Smith's clinic but are not sure whether it was Dr Smith himself who attended.

• It would be helpful to have more information on waiting times for individual clinics. I typed "waiting times" into the individual website search engines and none gave me any helpful information to advise patients.

• New developments in our local NHS should be included. For instance, we have heard that there will be a new bariatric surgery service (surgery for the grossly obese) in NHS Lothian. Yet the only information available from the website is a memorandum from board papers about the meetings discussing the issue.

After this rather depressing trawl of the NHS online, I turned to a couple of Scottish private hospital sites and was greeted with a very different story.

There is a potted history of each consultant and even some photographs. I found information on my carpal tunnel syndrome specialist and my retinal eye surgeon.

Why should the NHS play second fiddle to the private sector in the provision of appropriate and adequate information for patients? Surely this should be a priority for health boards?

The patients would benefit, the professionals would benefit and, dare I say it, the politicians would reap the kudos. So how about it being in the next performance review for health boards? Patients should be asked what information they want to see included on the NHS sites.

Following this rant I thought I should check my own GP practice's online presence.

Oops! No pictures of the doctors, but at least our names are all there and we offer an interactive service for making appointments and ordering prescriptions on line. Still some work to do though!