GP services for older adults in care homes – we want your views

Engagement work has taken place in Lewisham to collect the views on current and future enhanced primary care (GP Practice) services that support local care homes.

A new service is due to go live in April 2024 under a single provider via an Alternative Provider Medical Services (APMS) contract, helping to give uniformity and consistency of service provision across the borough.

The engagement work was carried out to collect views to help with the decision making of a procurement during 2023/24, awarding a new contract for GP services in care homes and other extra care housing facilities.

How we collected the feedback?

Throughout April and May 2023 engagement activities took place with a variety of partners and stakeholders, including care home residents and relatives and GP practices and pharmacists.

An array of different engagement techniques were used, including:

• Let's Talk Health and Care’ platform enabling members of the public take an online survey ad give their views. This was supported and promoted through social media.
• The online engagement was also supplemented feedback being collected in-person, during visits to three homes.
• Information was also sent to all Lewisham older adult care homes and extra care housing facilities to share with residents and their relatives to give them an opportunity to feed back.

What people told us

Many important points were identified in the feedback that was received from all the respective channels and methods.

• Care homes residents gave generally positive feedback from their recent interactions with their local GPs (although access issues were mentioned).
• The continuity of care with the same GP was seen as important to patients for consistency, and to develop a good patient/doctor relationship.
• Other feedback showed that face-to-face care was highly valued over video or telephone appointments because of the inherent problems of video and telephone interaction for some residents who are hard of hearing or are visually impaired.
• Some residents particularly noted the kind, friendly compassionate nature of their GP, reflecting the importance they placed on these values and characteristics.
• Respondents overwhelmingly thought that a GP service that encouraged multidisciplinary working should be supported.
• They also collectively valued the importance of having a more consistent level of service amongst care homes in Lewisham.
• There was unequivocal support of the importance of continuity of care. Having the same GP or clinicians care for them and acting as consistent participants was viewed as being particularly important.
• Regular GP/clinician visits to care homes was also seen as important to provide both proactive – and reactive care for residents, while simultaneously offering advice and support to care home staff.

Next steps

The engagement work will be used as part of the Invitation to Tender (ITT) process for the new contract. A new contract will be issued by the ICS on 29 December 2023, following a bidder presentation in late October.