General practitioners make over 9 million referrals each year, triggering many billions of pounds of expenditure. There is also significant variation in the quality and rate of referral between GPs and GP practices. As the NHS faces a prospective funding gap of £14-£20 billion and GPs take the lead for ...
Health care commissioners will need to deliver a sustainable system in the face of the most challenging financial and organisational environment seen in decades. They must shift the current emphasis on acute and episodic care towards prevention, self-care and integrated and well co-ordinated care to cope with an aging population ...
This paper was commissioned by The King’s Fund to inform the panel of the Inquiry into the Quality of General Practice in England. The views expressed are those of the authors and not of the panel. and General practice plays a central role in ensuring patients receive a timely and accurate diagnosis, either directly from a GP or from an appropriate specialist as a consequence of a GP referral. Failure, or delay, in correctly identifying and referring patients who need secondary care can have profound clinical consequences. ...