Presentation to Dudley CCG members' meeting, 26 Mar 2019. Looking at the lessons from some of the successes and disappointments of integrated care, and some of the top tips for redesigning general practice to release more of its potential.
8. @robertvarnam #NHSLongTermPlan
74%
7%
6%
4%
3%
3%
2%
2%
Other in practice
Self care/Pharmacy
Outpatients
Sick notes / appeals
Care navigation
Continuity/preparation
Other
Data from 5,128 consultations
GPs judged 26%
of their consultations
to be potentially avoidable
… 18% are about
how the practice
manages its workload
Potentially
avoidable GP
appointments
(audit by GPs)
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Continuity Accessible personal
care built on a relationship from cradle
to grave
Community focussed Responsible for
a registered population, improving wellbeing
Holistic Dealing with the patient as a
person not a disease or part of the body
Comprehensive Handling wide range
of problems, managing clinical uncertainty
STRENGTHS OF PRIMARY CARE
“Primary” …
first, foremost,
central, key
Central Coordinating and connecting
other teams, referring where appropriate
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Continuity
Community focussed
Holistic
Comprehensive
STRENGTHS OF PRIMARY CARE
Central
Constraints on delivering
the full potential:
Demand >> workforce + funding
Practices are set up to provide mostly
medical care (reactive, individual >
proactive, population focused)
Hard to coordinate other inputs and ‘pull
in’ specialist support
Too small and isolated to have significant
impact on population or system
Primary care doesn’t need reinventing, but liberating to deliver its potential
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Lessons so far…
• Integrated care that doesn't include general practice usually achieves
less than is hoped. And it isn't integrated care.
• Refer-out has been the most common model
• Why?
• GP too separate / independent (perception + reality)
• GPs don't have to work differently
• GPs don't have time
• ICTs often make high demand on GP time (attend whole mtg)
• Disadvantages
• GPs don't get to work differently
• Breaks continuity of generalist care
• Service spec often creates boundaries / constraints
• Handovers involve create delays, inefficiencies and safety risks
So …
How do we want the clinical collaboration to work, in a wider
multidisciplinary team?
How do we ensure GPs have time to be a full part of joined-up
multidisciplinary care
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Redesigning care
How would it be if…
• GPs didn't have to be here for everything
• It wasn't us and them but us - all with the same responsibility
• We always asked “what happens next”
• GPs weren't restricted to a conveyor belt of identical appointments
Rethink access
Right channel / person / time
Broaden clinical
options
What next? Who next? How
best? Where?
Make self care a
credible default
Build knowledge, skills,
confidence. Responsive
support.
New services for local
needs
Unmet need? Unnecessary
break in continuity? Variance in
outcome?
Deliberately design
teamwork
First maximise each
contribution. Then ask who’s in
charge.
Manage needs
proactively
Anticipate, plan, coordinate
Key enablers…
Invest in
leadership
Data >>
hunches
Build QI
capabilities
One patient,
one record
One
population,
one contract
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Innovations from practices
throughout around England that
release time and improve care.
bit.ly/gpcapacityforum
GENERAL PRACTICE
FORWARD VIEW 10 High Impact Actions
19. @robertvarnam #NHSLongTermPlan
Innovations from practices
throughout around England that
release time and improve care.
bit.ly/gpcapacityforum
GENERAL PRACTICE
FORWARD VIEW 10 High Impact Actions
bit.ly/gpcapacityforum
22. @robertvarnam #NHSLongTermPlan
Purpose > function > formPurpose > function > formPurpose > function > formPurpose > function > formPurpose > function > formPurpose > function > formPurpose > function > formPurpose > function > form
More than organisational form, success depends on:
Shared purpose
Culture for collaboration
Capabilities for improvement and leadership
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System: 1m+
“Integrated care system”
Major partnerships & shifts in priority
Workforce & infrastructure planning
Large scale service reconfiguration
Place: 100 – 500k
“At Scale Primary Care Provider” / “Federation”
Organisational infrastructure & governance
Specialist staff & services
Employment & career development
Model design and population wellbeing
Partnerships with all health & care providers
Neighbourhood: 30-50k
“Primary Care Network”
Urgent care and resilience
Locality-tailored services
Shared MDT
Partnerships with local providers
General practice
Coordinated, complex, multidisciplinary
care
‘Place of belonging’ for patients needing
continuity
Doing the right thing at the right scale
At the heart of the case for change is not the workload of practices – important though that is – it is the needs of patients, and they way they are changing. When the NHS was founded, its purpose was fairly simple. Every now and then, people got ill. When they did, they consulted their doctor. If it was a straightforward problem, they would give a prescription, the person would get better, return to work and, in a year or two, they might need the doctor again. If it was less straightforward, they would be referred to a clever doctor – who would give a prescription or cut out the offending part. The patient would then get better, return to work, and, in a year or two, they might become ill again.
That accounted for the majority of the anticipated work of the NHS. And, for some patients, that’s still the kind of care that’s needed.
However, a growing proportion of our work is fundamentally different. This now seminal chart illustrates the central fact underlying the quantitative and qualitative change in the work of primary care. It illustrates the rise in multimorbidity with age. As people get older, they have more simultaneous longterm conditions. So that, by the age of 75, for example, at least a third of people are living with four or more LTCs. And, as our demography changes, the proportion of older people increases. Dealing with longterm conditions already accounts for over half of work in primary care. It is set to increase.
And, crucially, this represents a qualitative change in the nature of work. These are not people who visit the GP every year or two to get cured of their problem. These are people with problems that we cannot cure – they are living with multiple issues which will not go away, and they visit the GP six, seven, eight or more times a year. At least. Furthermore, the more simultaneous problems someone has, or the greater their frailty, the less helpful it is to pass their care to a doctor specialising in one part of the body. These people need treating as people, not diseases.
So the population of people who need what only primary care can offer has grown, the amount of time they need has grown – and both are set to continue growing. This is the chief case for change in primary care, the pressure of patients’ needs.
This is not a blip requiring a short-term correction to the priorities of the NHS. It is a fundamental shift which requires every developed nation on earth to turn away from what Muir Gray has termed the ‘century of the hospital’, and place the emphasis where the population’s need is.
A growing collection – submit your own examples and questions.
Resilience
Economies of scale
System partnerships
Skillmix
Innovation and improvement
Staff development