Increasing continuity of care in General Practice; the interplay between research and improvement

Chair: Charli Colegate, Research Manager, The Health Foundation

Speakers:

·         Angus Wiltshire, Continuity of Care Programme Officer, The Health Foundation

·         Therese Lloyd - Data Analyst, Improvement Analytics Unit

·         Sarah Reeves - Principal Consultant, Mott Macdonald

·         Sir Denis Pereira Gray -  Research lead, St Leonards Practice Exeter

·         Chris Salisbury – Professor of Primary Health Care, University of Bristol

In 2018, The Health Foundation established a programme exploring improving continuity of care in general practice. This included making awards to five large-scale GP practices and federations to carry out targeted improvement work to increase continuity in their practices and commissioning two programme-level evaluations.

The Foundation and their partners will share their approaches to researching and improving continuity of care. They will share their experiences of funding, researching and implementing improvement initiatives. They will also share some early stage findings that are emerging from the programme.

We will be joined by Chris Salisbury, who will summarise the wider research, policy and practice landscape the programme is operating in. Responding to questions sourced via social media and other avenues, the panel will place what they've discussed in the larger context of primary care research and practice.

We anticipate the discussions to touch on topics such as access versus continuity; the challenges of evaluating complex improvement programmes; the perception of continuity of care in within general practice and other care contexts and the challenges of delivering continuity in light of the COVID-19 outbreak.