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

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.