It’s something GPs do regularly, but for UK intensivist Dr Matt Morgan, leaving his safe hospital environment and visiting a patient at home was a difficult yet profound experience.

He’s urging other hospital doctors to occasionally step outside the “safe neon confines” of their usual workplaces to see patients in their home environments in order to better understand their needs.

“Last year, I did something I found difficult, unsettling and risky,” Dr Morgan wrote in a BMJ opinion piece.

“Yet, in many ways, it was a simple act that community health workers do every day.