The Royal College of General Practitioners has released a report illustrating how GPs are improving the integration of care to the benefit of patients.
The report, The Future of GP Collaborative Working, looks at seven case studies from across the UK in a range of specialties, population groups and methods.
The Royal College of General Practitioners has released a report illustrating how GPs are improving the integration of care to the benefit of patients.
The report, The Future of GP Collaborative Working, looks at seven case studies from across the UK in a range of specialties, population groups and methods.
For example, in Derbyshire, the Thornbrook surgery has employed a mental health worker to improve patient access to mental health services through their GP.
The report adds that while the service was designed by the GPs in the surgery, it is commissioned by the local clinical commissioning group (CCG).
Furthermore, an integrated pediatrician and GP service called Connecting Care for Children now runs across three CCGs in London: West London, Central London, and Hammersmith and Fulham.
The scheme aims to move pediatric healthcare from hospitals to “GP hubs” in the community, which has led to a 69% decrease in referrals to secondary care.
Another service, commissioned in 2013 by the Brighton and Hove CCG, is a dedicated dementia service that diagnoses and treats patients within a primary care and home setting.
The Brighton and Hove Memory Assessment Service is a collaboration between the Brighton Integrated Care Service, the Sussex Partnership Foundation Trust, the Alzheimer’s Society and the Carers Center and intends to move dementia diagnosis out of secondary care services and into the community.
Dr Maureen Baker, Chair of the RCGP, said responses to “increasingly complex” patient needs are “one of the greatest challenges facing the NHS”.
“This report outlines a number of exciting examples where College members are shaping the future of general practice, and the wider health service, in order to deliver patient-centred care.
“Our patients’ health outcomes are best when we treat them as people, not diseases, and this holistic approach can only be achieved when doctors from across the health service work together – but we need to do this more, and better.
“There is no one size fits all approach to achieving this. Structural reorganisation can be a positive way forward for practices with sufficient resources, but new models of multidisciplinary working also have a vital role to play in providing patients with new and more integrated services closer to home.”
