The ‘Help Us Help You Primary Care’ campaign has been launched to increase patients’ knowledge and confidence in primary care and to raise awareness about the range of healthcare professionals working in general practice teams to help them get the right care, more easily, first time.
Local healthcare professionals in South Yorkshire are supporting the new campaign to help raise the profile of Primary Care services and support patients to better understand how they can get the best from these services.
Across South Yorkshire, most GP practices have developed an expanded team of health professionals working in general practice which include receptionists, nursing associates, care coordinators, physiotherapists and clinical pharmacists, meaning that patients can access the most appropriate care for their condition as quickly as possible.
Record numbers of people are seeking support from their family doctors but with one in five GP appointments for non-medical reasons such as loneliness or seeking advice on housing or debts.
Dr David Crichton, Chief Medical Officer from NHS South Yorkshire said “Record numbers of people are seeking support from their GP practice, with teams treating half a million more patients a week compared to before the pandemic, and this demand is only going to increase with an ageing population so the NHS must adapt its services to match this need.
“While people will be able to see their family doctor when needed, the NHS is giving people more options with additional staff working in General Practice across South Yorkshire, meaning patients can get specialist support from mental health professionals, physios, and pharmacists instead of needing to see a GP first.”
The NHS is training more than 7,500 staff to better assess patients’ needs when they first contact their practice so they can be seen by the right health professional. For example, if a patient has muscular pain, they will be booked straight into see a physiotherapist.
Patients who are given an appointment with a member of the wider team will receive specialist care which can be better as well as freeing up GPs to tend to patients with more complex health needs.
To help explain the support available in the community, a new film has been released by NHS England today, which sees three curious children go behind the scenes at a general practice to meet some of these professionals and learn more about how they help patients get the care they need.
Further information is available via the dedicated Meet your General Practice Team webpage.
