As you may already know, the Health Foundation launched a new funding programme in January this year to help to improve patient care and outcomes by exploring the potential to increase continuity of care within general practice.
This programme is inspired by a study published in August 2018, conducted by the Health Foundation. This study concluded that “strategies that improve the continuity of care in general practice may reduce secondary care costs, particularly for the heaviest users of healthcare […] and that promoting continuity might also improve the experience of patients and those working in general practice.”
Five projects were awarded up to £250,000 to carry out targeted quality improvement work over 18-24 months, to increase continuity in their practices.

The Health Foundation and RCGP, the support partner for the programme, understand the pressures faced by professionals working in general practice and wanted to know whether an increased focus on continuity of care could help bring benefits to both staff and patients.

As a part of their role as support partner, RCGP is developing a community of practice interested in continuity of care in general practice. The Continuity of Care in General Practice Community of Practice is a community that brings together GPs, healthcare professionals and people with lived experience to share learning about continuity of care in general practice. I am writing to you today as an x to see if you would be interesting in joining this community.

The community will explore a broad range of topics including how to achieve continuity of care, how this contributes to enabling people to live healthier and happier lives. Along with how this supports improvements in the delivery of care.

The RCGP will support those with an interest in continuity to join a community for continuity of care in general practice through:
• Facilitating continued learning and bringing together expertise and emerging continuity of care learning for primary care professionals. By sharing and developing learning from the Health Foundation’s improvement programme ‘Continuity of Care in General Practice’
• Sharing best practice and promoting continuity of care approaches. Sharing resources and case studies both online and through a series of webinars that will explore best practice, discuss challenges and enable networking. The first webinar is due to take place on Tuesday, 26 November 2019 between 12:30pm – 1:30pm.
• Supporting relationship building through facilitating the participants to share ideas, co-develop solutions, celebrate successes and overcome challenges both online and through network meetings.
If you would like to join the Community of Practice or learn more about the programme, please email continuity of care@rcgp.org.uk or let me know if you have any questions!