Policy Exchange - At your service: A proposal to reform general practice and enable digital healthcare at scale (3 March 2022)

Summary

General practice has always been the foundation and gateway to the NHS, but this part of the healthcare system is now under strain due to greater demand from an increasingly complex patient profile, and a stretched workforce. Lack of staff and coherent planning means that the current model is not fit for purpose, and this has resulted in a recent decrease in patient satisfaction.

This proposal by the think tank Policy Exchange outlines the reforms that could help the NHS develop a model of general practice to better meet the needs and interests of patients and healthcare workers.

Content

Key messages:

• Now is the time to reform general practice in England.
• Reform is not a distraction from tackling the biggest issues confronting the profession.
• A mixed economy should prevail, but with greater incentives for workforce, data and procurement to become coordinated through ‘layers of scale’ in cooperation with the NHS.
• Independent provision will continue to have a central role in primary care.
• The primary care pathway should be redesigned to improve access by creating a more coherent ‘first contact’.
• Ensure continuity of care is built into any new model.
• General practice should be the foundational layer for scaling digital healthcare in the NHS.