GPs should be a gateway to social care and support services

The main role of GPs has always been treating common medical conditions and referring patients to hospitals or other services for urgent and specialist treatment.

But gradually the role of GPs and primary care teams are changing. Driven by the integration agenda – which seeks a greater level of collaboration across frontline services – but also by the changing nature of the population’s health needs and rising demand on the NHS, new kinds of primary care services are being established.

Related: Doctors should prescribe gardening for patients more often, says report

Increasingly, patients are able to access GP-led hubs offering a range of services, or are given a social prescription that provides them with access to non-medical support, such as social clubs, peer networks or arts therapy and gardening. However, even with growing evidence that these models of care can reduce long-term demand on acute services, we have not yet seen a major shift in this direction.

That is why the recently published General Practice Forward View report is so welcome. As well as setting out detailed plans for the recruitment of more GPs and the improved use of technology, it argues for a refocus of the GP’s role on to prevention rather than cure, and the promotion of community-based care and support.

More specifically, the report calls for more areas to incorporate the multi-specialty community providers (MCPs) model of care – a programme of integrated primary, out-of-hospital and preventative care that is being piloted in 14 regions of the UK. Social prescriptions should also be more frequently used, it adds, to provide patients with access to organisations that can provide advice on employment, housing, debt and other support services.

We are beginning to see how exciting this future could be. In West Wakefield, the MCP has trained more than 60 people to be care navigators, who can direct people to alternative sources of community-based care and support.

In York, they are seeing increased patient satisfaction and a reduction in hospital costs as a consequence of implementing GP-led multi-disciplinary integrated care hubs that a providea single point of access to a full range of health and social care services. In Rotherham, a social prescription initiative is connecting the most deprived communities to support and keeping people healthy and independent for longer.

Of course, GPs will always be the first point of access for many into the NHS, but they have the potential to act as a gateway to other care services, saving the NHS money and improving outcomes for patients.

Ewan King is the director of business development and delivery at the Social Care Institute for Excellence (Scie)

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GPs should be a gateway to social care and support services