SCA practice case · Telephone consultation
“The son who leaves on Friday”
Telephone consultation
Older adult patient
Someone else speaking
Typical
Older adultsHealth disadvantage & vulnerabilities
The candidate brief
This is what you would read in the 3-minute window before the patient connects. Read it once, note two or three hypotheses and one thing you must not miss, then stop.
Patient
Grace Okafor · 79 years · female
Setting
Telephone — son calling about his mother (no consent on file).
Past history
- Hypertension
- Last seen 8 months ago
Medication
- Antihypertensive (repeat)
Allergies
NKDA
Recent notes
⚠ No consent on file to share information with family. No LPA recorded. Lives alone, widowed 2019.
Reason for contact
Son Daniel on the phone: “Mum’s memory has been going for a year.” Grace unaware of the call.
Practise this case
The full case is in the Hot Seat with the Gold plan. You get a 12-minute timer, a role-player script with facts released only when asked, examiner checkpoints by the three RCGP domains, a model consultation and the guidance behind it.
What this case tests
Show the learning points (spoiler: read after you have practised)
A third-party memory call runs on the same rails as every third-party call — everything in, nothing out — but the content is a collateral history good enough to triage: gradual decline over a year with preserved ADLs points to the memory pathway, not delirium. The live jobs are protective and time-critical: the repeating doorstep scam (bank vulnerable-customer team, 101/trading standards), driving flagged for assessment, and the LPA window — grantable only while capacity remains. The hidden agenda is Friday: convert "sorted by Friday" into "started by Friday", answer the abandonment question honestly, and keep Grace — who has rights, humour and a bridge club — at the centre of her own story.
The guidance behind it
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