The impact of a named GP scheme on continuity of care and emergency hospital admission: a cohort study among older patients in England, 2012–2016

ObjectiveTo investigate whether the introduction of a named general practitioner (GP, family physician) improved patients’ healthcare for patients aged 75 and over in England.SettingRandom sample of 27 500 patients aged 65 to 84 in 2012 within 139 English practices from the Clinical Practice Researc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:BMJ open 2019-09, Vol.9 (9), p.e029103-e029103
Main Authors: Tammes, Peter, Payne, Rupert A, Salisbury, Chris, Chalder, Melanie, Purdy, Sarah, Morris, Richard W
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Clinical medicine
Cohort analysis
Continuity of care
health policy
Health Services Research
Hospitalization
Hospitals
Older people
organisation of health services
Patients
Primary care
Public health
research methods
statistics &amp
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Summary:ObjectiveTo investigate whether the introduction of a named general practitioner (GP, family physician) improved patients’ healthcare for patients aged 75 and over in England.SettingRandom sample of 27 500 patients aged 65 to 84 in 2012 within 139 English practices from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink linked with Hospital Episode Statistics.DesignProspective cohort approach, measuring patients’ GP consultations and emergency hospital admissions 2 years before/after the intervention. Patients were grouped in (i) aged over 74 and (ii) younger than 75 in both periods in order to compare who were or were not subject to the intervention. Adjusted associations between the named GP scheme, continuity of care and emergency hospital admission were examined using multilevel modelling.InterventionNational Health Service policy to introduce a named accountable GP for patients aged over 74 in April 2014.Main outcome measures(A) Continuity of care index-score, (B) risk of emergency hospital admissions, (C) number of emergency hospital admissions.ResultsThe intervention was associated with a decrease in continuity index-scores of −0.024 (95% CI −0.030 to −0.018, p
ISSN:2044-6055
2044-6055
DOI:10.1136/bmjopen-2019-029103