GPs should have the flexibility to provide longer patient consultations, GP leaders in London have claimed.
A range of recommendations for improving primary care were released in Londonwide LMCs Future of General Practice in London: Meeting the Challenge document.
The document calls for practices to be given resources to provide continuity of care and flexible access.
The document stated: “GPs and practice teams need to have the ability to provide longer patient consultations where necessary. In some practices, this will be for a high proportion of patients. They need seamless access to wider support for their patients in their own homes and in the community 24 hours a day, seven days a week.’
The document also called for primary care to have the “resources to provide personal continuity to patients who need and desire it, whilst being able to maintain flexible access to meet the needs of all their patients”.
The report read: “Continuity of care… is paramount in the effectiveness of general practice and the delivery of personalised care; loss of this will result in increased cost through over investigation and unnecessary referrals.”
Londonwide LMCs chief executive Dr Michelle Drage wrote in the foreword: “We believe that effective and lasting change is best shaped, driven and implemented by the very people affected by it – the general practitioner workforce, their practice team members and patients in association with the wider multidisciplinary team. Any other approach simply won’t work.”
