Evaluating the relational continuity of care of four GP practices, one of which uses personalised lists.

Abstract

Continuity of care is a fading type of care because GPs are working more flexibly and at reduced working hours. The GP Contract gave a financial incentive to provide prompt GP appointments, but to the detriment of continuity of care. Increased patient demand for appointments has seemingly led to patients favouring 'any' appointment with a GP rather than 'an appointment with the same GP'. Continuity of care in general practice is associated with greater patient satisfaction and is the preferred type of care for patients with chronic disease or psychological problems. In the Northeast of England there is a multi-partner GP practice that operates a true personalised list system. Other GP practices in the area do offer a degree of continuity of care, but this has not been measured. To measure and compare the relational continuity of care index of four matched GP practices, one of which operates a personalised list. A written protocol enabled the authors to extract comparable anonymised data from four GP practices over a year (January to December 2019). Two standardised indexes of continuity of care (UPC and SLICC) were calculated and compared. Continuity of care was consistently higher with personalised lists. UPC index results show that all GP practices provide surprisingly high continuity of care, albeit not with patients' assigned GPs. Higher monthly UPC scores versus overall scores indicate patients are receiving continuity of care in relation to their condition. Continuity of care is still observed in GP practices that do not have personalised lists.