General practitioners make over 9 million referrals each year, triggering many billions of pounds of expenditure. There is also significant variation in the quality and rate of referral between GPs and GP practices. As the NHS faces a prospective funding gap of £14-£20 billion and GPs take the lead for ...
The white paper ‘Equity and excellence: liberating the NHS’ (Department of Health 2010) sets out a wide-ranging set of proposals to reform the NHS. The King’s Fund and Doctors.net.uk have carried out a survey to ascertain doctors’ opinions of the impact of these reforms. This paper summarises the main findings ...
A range of factors contribute to whether patients feel they have good access to general practice care, including practice location, opening times, ease of arranging appointments, and speed of access. Performance by access criteria is now part of the quality-monitoring system for general practice. But patients still complain of trade-offs, ... and This paper was commissioned by The King's Fund to inform the Inquiry into the Quality of General Practice in England. The views expressed are those of the authors and not of the panel.
This paper was commissioned by The King’s Fund to inform the GP Inquiry panel. The views expressed are those of the authors and not of the panel. and Over the past 20 years there has been a growing awareness of the need to improve quality across health care and general practice, driven by a need to reduce inequalities in health care and the need to effectively translate evidence into practice and by the changing expectations of patients and ...
The role of the patient is no longer as a passive recipient of care. Nowadays doctors are expected to engage patients in their own health, care and treatment. There are also a number of initiatives to encourage patient involvement in the design, planning and delivery of health services. To inform ...
As part of the Inquiry into the Quality of General Practice, The King’s Fund commissioned this research project to examine the management of acute illness (both minor and serious). In common with the other projects commissioned as a part of the Inquiry, the research team was tasked with examining: the ... and This paper was commissioned by The King's Fund to inform the Inquiry panel. The views expressed are those of the authors and not of the panel.
This paper was commissioned by The King’s Fund to inform the Inquiry panel. The views expressed are those of the authors and not of the panel. and In March 2010 the Inquiry held a seminar on inequalities with participants including GPs, practice nurses, NHS executives, health academics and patient representatives. Key issues raised in discussion include: what measures would enable general practice to be more proactive in identifying population sub-groups who are not seeking care or not ...
This paper was commissioned by The King’s Fund to inform the panel of the Inquiry into the Quality of General Practice in England. The views expressed are those of the authors and not of the panel. and General practice plays a central role in ensuring patients receive a timely and accurate diagnosis, either directly from a GP or from an appropriate specialist as a consequence of a GP referral. Failure, or delay, in correctly identifying and referring patients who need secondary care can have profound clinical consequences. ...
This paper was commissioned by The King’s Fund to inform the panel of the Inquiry into the Quality of General Practice in England. The views expressed are those of the authors and not of
the panel. and There is evidence that a good-quality therapeutic relationship improves both patient satisfaction and professional fulfilment, saves time, and increases compliance with prescribed medication. Yet the subtle and intangible elements that underpin a strong therapeutic relationship are difficult to define and to measure. To inform its work, the Inquiry into the ...
This research paper was commissioned by The King's Fund to inform the panel of the Inquiry into the Quality of General Practice in England. The views expressed are those of the authors and not of the panel. and Recent government guidance, "End of Life Care Strategy: Promoting High Quality Care for All Adults at the End of Life" and "Guidance on Cancer Services: Improving Supportive and Palliative Care for Adults with Cancer", has raised the profile of end-of-life-care (EOLC). However, historically care has been poorly organised, with large ...