Alternative primary care providers perform worse than traditional GP practices
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Alternative providers of primary care services in the NHS—which includes private sector companies— don’t perform as well as traditional GP practices, reveals a study* published today in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.
Competition has not boosted the quality of care, and may have worsened it, say the researchers from Imperial College London.
Alternative providers have been contracted to offer primary care in the NHS in England since 2004 under reforms designed to boost competition.
The researchers looked at a range of 17 performance indicators from the Health and Social Care Information Centre and the national GP Patient Survey in all general practices operating between 2008-9 and 2012-13.
The indicators included access measures, such as how easily patients can get appointments, clinical measures, such as how well they manage patients’ blood pressure, and efficiency measures.
The analysis showed that 347 general practices, equivalent to 4.1% of the total, are now run by alternative providers, including private companies and voluntary sector organisations.
These practices tend to be smaller, and serve younger, more diverse, and more deprived populations than traditional providers.
But alternative providers performed worse than traditional GP practices on 15 indicators even after taking account of the characteristics of the practices and the populations they serve.
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