The paradox of primary care

Across the works primary care is creaking at the seams as it attempts to deliver a wider range of services on increasingly sick and vulnerable population using a model which has not changed significantly for many years. Discussions with primary care experts across Europe at a meeting organised by the Nuffield Trust and KPMG describe this paradox, and concludes that “primary care needs to change”. Primary care fit for the future needs to be comprehensive, person-centred and population orientated, coordinated, accessible, safe and high quality and sustainable.

A description of the situation in the UK by Gary Belfield points to the unwarranted clinical variation across primary care, the shift away from acute care, the increase in federated and multi practice organisations, the need for incentives to drive behaviour change and better use of technology to meet future challenges. But, the greatest challenge is development of new leadership and innovation models to meet these new challenges.

The primary care paradox: New designs and models, KPMG Healthcare, 2013