Joining the dots – how do patients and clinicians experience continuity in extended access clinics?

In this episode, we talk to Patrick Burch, a GP and a THIS Institute PhD fellow at the Centre for Primary Care and Health Services Research at the University of Manchester.

Title of paper: An observational study of how clinicians, patients and the health care system create the experience of joined up, continuous primary care in the absence of relational continuity

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3399/BJGP.2023.0208

The way that many modern healthcare systems are designed increasingly relies on the assumption that, in the absence of relational continuity, any competent clinician can deliver joined up, continuous care if they have access to clinical notes. This study of a primary care environment, where patients are usually seen by a clinician they have not seen before, demonstrates multiple connected patient, clinician, and system factors that appear important for a patient to experience joined up, continuous care. Considering these factors in the design of primary care systems may have the potential to improve experience for patients.