General practice is the name given in various nations, such as the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, to the services provided by General practitioners. In some nations, such as the US, similar services may be described as family medicine or primary care. The term Primary Care in the UK may also include services provided by community pharmacy, optometrist, dental surgery and community hearing care providers. The balance of care between primary care and secondary care - which usually refers to hospital based services - varies from place to place, and with time. In many countries there are initiatives to move services out of hospitals into the community, in the expectation that this will save money and be more convenient.
Clinical governance is a systematic approach to maintaining and improving the quality of patient care within the National Health Service (NHS). Clinical governance became important in health care after the Bristol heart scandal in 1995, during which an anaesthetist, Dr Stephen Bolsin, exposed the high mortality rate for paediatric cardiac surgery at the Bristol Royal Infirmary. It was originally elaborated within the United Kingdom National Health Service (NHS), and its most widely cited formal definition describes it as:
A framework through which NHS organisations are accountable for continually improving the quality of their services and safeguarding high standards of care by creating an environment in which excellence in clinical care will flourish.
Informing Healthcare was set up by the Welsh Assembly Government in December 2003 to improve healthcare services for people in Wales by introducing modern ways of sharing and using information. It is one of the key enablers for 'Designed For Life'; the national ten year strategy to deliver better health and social care for Wales.
NHS Scotland, sometimes styled NHSScotland, is the publicly funded healthcare system in Scotland, and one of the four systems which make up the National Health Service in the United Kingdom. It operates fourteen territorial NHS boards across Scotland, seven special non-geographic health boards and NHS Health Scotland.
Health and Social Care (HSC) is the publicly funded healthcare system in Northern Ireland, and one of the four systems which make up the National Health Service in the United Kingdom. The Northern Ireland Executive through its Department of Health is responsible for its funding, while the Public Health Agency is the executive agency responsible for the provision of public health and social care services across Northern Ireland. It is free of charge to all citizens of Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom.
The Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) is a system for the performance management and payment of general practitioners (GPs) in the National Health Service (NHS) in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. It was introduced as part of the new general medical services (GMS) contract in April 2004, replacing various other fee arrangements.
A virtual ward is a cadre for providing support in the community to people with the most complex medical and social needs. The concept was developed in Croydon Primary Care Trust – and virtual wards are now being introduced in several parts of the UK. Virtual wards use the systems and staffing of a hospital ward, but without the physical building: they provide preventative care for people in their own homes. The project won in four categories of the 2006 Health Service Journal Awards namely Primary Care Innovation, Patient-Centred Care, Information-Based Decision Making, and Clinical Service Redesign. This was the first time in the 25-year history of the HSJ awards that a project won in four categories. In 2007 it won the Transformation category of the Public Service Awards run by The Guardian and was judged overall winner of those awards.
The National Health Service (NHS) is the publicly funded healthcare system in England, and one of the four National Health Service systems in the United Kingdom. It is the second largest single-payer healthcare system in the world after the Brazilian Sistema Único de Saúde. Primarily funded by the government from general taxation, and overseen by the Department of Health and Social Care, the NHS provides healthcare to all legal English residents and residents from other regions of the UK, with most services free at the point of use. Some services, such as emergency treatment and treatment of infectious diseases, are free for most people, including visitors.
Healthcare in Britain is mainly provided by the National Health Service, a public body that provides healthcare to all permanent residents of the United Kingdom that is free at the point of use and paid for from general taxation. Since health is a devolved matter, there are differences with the provisions for healthcare elsewhere in the United Kingdom. Though the public system dominates healthcare provision in Britain, private health care and a wide variety of alternative and complementary treatments are available for those willing to pay.
A Summary Care Record (SCR) is an electronic patient record, a summary of National Health Service patient data held on a central database covering England, part of the NHS National Programme for IT. The purpose of the database is to make patient data readily available anywhere that the patient seeks treatment, for example if they are staying away from their home town or if they are unable to give information for themselves. Despite opposition from some quarters, by September 2010, 424 GP practices across at least 36 primary care trusts had uploaded 2.7 million Summary Care Records. On 10 October 2010, the Health Secretary announced that the coalition government would continue with the introduction, but that the records would 'hold only the essential medical information needed in an emergency – that is medication, allergen and [drug] reactions'. By March 2013, more than 24 million SCRs had been created across England.
Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) is the national healthcare improvement organisation for Scotland. It is a public body which is part of the Scottish National Health Service, created in April 2011.
Electronic Document Transfer (EDT) Hub captures documents and distributes them electronically to any GP practice or organisation connected to it. EDT Hub is used widely within the NHS, in England where it is currently being used within over forty NHS Trusts. EDT is also deployed throughout the NHS in Scotland EDT Hub comes in two versions, uni-directional and multi-directional. Uni-directional hubs allow one way transfers of documents from a source to an end point. Multi-directional hubs allow document transfers to happen between any end points, The EDT Hub can be fully integrated with the Docman document management system and can be used with other clinical systems currently deployed within the NHS.
NHS England is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department of Health and Social Care. It oversees the budget, planning, delivery and day-to-day operation of the commissioning side of the NHS in England as set out in the Health and Social Care Act 2012. It holds the contracts for GPs and NHS dentists. The Secretary of State publishes annually a document known as the mandate which specifies the objectives which the Board should seek to achieve. National Health Service Regulations are published each year to give legal force to the mandate.
Out-of-hours services are the arrangements to provide access to healthcare at times when General Practitioner surgeries are closed; in the United Kingdom this is normally between 6.30pm and 8am, at weekends, at Bank Holidays and sometimes if the practice is closed for educational sessions.
The Five Year Forward View was produced by NHS England in October 2014 under the leadership of Simon Stevens as a planning document.
EMIS Health, formerly known as Egton Medical Information Systems, supplies electronic patient record systems and software used in primary care, acute care and community pharmacy in the United Kingdom. The company is based in Leeds. It claims that more than half of GP practices across the UK use EMIS Health software and holds number one or two market positions in its main markets.
Healthcare in the West Midlands is now the responsibility of five clinical commissioning groups (CCG): Birmingham and Solihull; Sandwell and West Birmingham; Dudley; Wolverhampton; and Walsall.
Medworxx is a health information technology company founded in 2004 and currently based in Toronto that supplies services to over 400 hospitals in Canada, France, the United States and the United Kingdom. It was bought by Aptean in October 2015.
The Health and Social Care Network (HSCN) is a standards-based network that is replacing the N3 network in the National Health Service (NHS) in England. It went live in April 2017 and transition is expected to have been completed by March 2019.
Advanced is a Private British company founded by Vin Murria in 2008 with its main headquarters based in Slough, Berkshire. It provides Information Technology services including hosting and cloud based systems to the NHS and many other organisations. Through various acquisitions, in 2016 it became the third largest software provider in the UK market while employing over 2,000 people with a customer base of more than 20,000 organisations. Later in the year it would go on to rebrand itself to "Advanced" while opening a new central headquarters in Birmingham's Mailbox.
