How well do I know and trust my doctor? One Care

The focus on extending access to GP appointments and working at scale can impact on continuity of care and result in fewer people being able to see a specific GP.

This project led by One Care aimed to redress this balance by working with GP practices to improve continuity through interpersonal care between a patient and single health care professional (or micro-team) for all appointment types.

There were 23 practices involved in the project, ranging from teams with six to 32 GPs, and with differing patient population demographics.

A six-step resource toolkit was produced to share learning across the participating practices. The toolkit provides practical suggestions on how to improve continuity, along with communication materials to help raise awareness among patients and staff of why continuity of care is important.

With a lack of available data on levels of continuity of care, the project team developed a ‘Usual GP Measuring Tool’, which provides an easy way for GP practices to measure their continuity of care.

The approach enabled the practices to improve continuity for their patients: 22 of the participating practices improved continuity of care by up to 15 per cent. This was achieved while also responding to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and the vaccination programme.  

It was found that practices, regardless of their list size, can achieve good levels of continuity, including those that are multi-site; and that GPs working a low number sessions achieve continuity levels on a par with GPs working a high number of sessions.

Contact information

For more information about this project, please contact Bryony Campbell, Assistant Delivery Director, One Care.