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General practice is the name given in various nations, such as the United Kingdom, Australia New Zealand and South Africa 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.
General medical services (GMS) is the range of healthcare that is provided by general practitioners as part of the National Health Service in the United Kingdom. The NHS specifies what GPs, as independent contractors, are expected to do and provides funding for this work through arrangements known as the General Medical Services Contract. Today, the GMS contract is a UK-wide arrangement with minor differences negotiated by each of the four UK health departments. In 2013 60% of practices had a GMS contract as their principle contract. The contract has sub-sections and not all are compulsory. The other forms of contract are the Personal Medical Services or Alternative Provider Medical Services contracts. They are designed to encourage practices to offer services over and above the standard contract. Alternative Provider Medical Services contracts, unlike the other contracts, can be awarded to anyone, not just GPs, don't specify standard essential services, and are time limited. A new contract is issued each year.
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 Care Quality Commission (CQC) is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department of Health and Social Care of the United Kingdom. It was established in 2009 to regulate and inspect health and social care services in England.
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.
Care UK is a British company providing health and social care. The company works with councils, Clinical Commissioning Groups and doctors to deliver care and support for older people and those with learning disabilities or mental health problems, as well as a range of healthcare services for NHS patients.
Clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) are NHS organisations set up by the Health and Social Care Act 2012 to organise the delivery of NHS services in England. The announcement that GPs would take over this commissioning role was made in the 2010 white paper "Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS". This was part of the government's advertised desire to create a clinically-driven commissioning system that was more sensitive to the needs of patients. The 2010 white paper became law under the Health and Social Care Act 2012 in March 2012. At the end of March 2013 there were 211 CCGs.
Virgin Care is a private provider of publicly funded community health and social services, and has been commissioned by the National Health Service and Local Authorities in England since 2010.
SSP Health is the largest provider of primary care GP services in the North West of England, one of only three such organisations in England serving more than 140,000 patients.
The Hurley Group is a large provider of primary care services in London, one of only 3 organisations in England which served more than 100,000 patients in 2014. In 2012 it ran 13 practices, had 250 employees and provided a variety of NHS services across London.
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 Modality Partnership is a large GP partnership formed in 2009. Such large practices are often described as a "super partnership". According to the King's Fund in 2016 it was one of England’s largest super-practices. In 2018 it had about 400,000 patients and was thought to be the largest practice in England.
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 Kent is now mainly the responsibility from 1st April 2020 of the Kent & Medway Clinical Commissioning Group. Certain specialised services are directly commissioned by NHS England, coordinated through the South East integrated regional team. Some NHS England structures are aligned on a Kent & Medway basis, others on a South East basis and there is liaison with London that provides many tertiary healthcare services to the residents of Kent.
Healthcare in Sussex was the responsibility of seven Clinical Commissioning Groups covering: Brighton and Hove; Coastal West Sussex; Horsham and Mid Sussex; Crawley; Eastbourne Hailsham and Seaford; Hastings and Rother; High Weald; and Lewes-Havens from 2013 to 2020. From April 2020 they will be merged into three covering East Sussex, West Sussex, and Brighton and Hove.
Private medicine in the UK, where universal state-funded healthcare is provided by the National Health Service, is a niche market.
Lakeside Healthcare Groupwhich operates from a number of sites across Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire, is one of the biggest General practice / Primary Care Providers in the National Health Service with 80 partners and almost 200,000 patients.
Babylon Health is a health service provider that provides remote consultations with doctors and health care professionals via text and video messaging through its mobile application. Their subscription business model for private healthcare services launched in the UK in 2013. They have since expanded internationally to Canada, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia and the United States. A subset of its services are also available in Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.
GP Federations became popular among English general practitioners after 2010 as a means to exploit the opportunities - or mitigate the threats - posed by the Five Year Forward View proposals in the English NHS which envisaged delivering primary care at a larger scale than the traditional GP list. It is widely believed that ‘Practices cannot survive on their own – they have to look at ways of making themselves stronger.’ 15 sites were selected in December 2015 to test new enhanced primary care models serving populations of 30,000 to 50,000 patients. Some, but by no means all, clinical commissioning groups have given financial support to encourage the formation of federations.
References
- ↑ "Dominance of small GP practices undermines push for extended providers". Health Service Journal. 19 February 2014. Retrieved 13 July 2014.
- ↑ "Private firm closes flagship GP practice in north London". Pulse. 8 February 2012. Retrieved 13 July 2014.
- ↑ "UnitedHealth quits primary care and sells off surgeries to The Practice". Pulse. 20 April 2011. Retrieved 13 July 2014.
- ↑ "Major private GP provider loses top executives". Health Service Journal. 15 February 2018. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
- ↑ "The Practice Group Ltd". NHS For Sale. 2017. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
- ↑ "Fresh start for Brighton family doctors' surgery". Brighton and Hove News. 10 March 2018. Retrieved 2 April 2018.