Dr Caroline Taylor
NAPC Chair
In primary care we are required to spend a considerable amount of time chasing metrics that actually only measure one small parameter of a patient’s health. It’s frustrating for the whole primary care team takes, time away from actual patient care and in most cases doesn’t make any significant impact on the patient’s health outcomes.
Wouldn’t it be great if instead of 100’s of tick boxes to evaluate the success of our health and care interventions, there was just one single measure?
At NAPC we have been testing such an approach for the last few years using one single question to assess how effective we are in improving people’s health health by measuring their activation/motivation to manage their own health and well-being.
We know that increasing people’s activation is associated with better health outcomes, better care experience and lower healthcare costs. It truly is a single measure covering the main aims of the NHS.
The question uses a four-point score to record people’s baseline position and after an intervention designed to increase their activation it is measured again. A one point increase in the score correlates to improved and increased self-care and less dependence on health & care services. NAPC’s work in this area demonstrates that improving patient activation by one point can save 5 GP contacts and £327 in NHS cost per patient per year
The question can be asked by anyone in the team that is responsible for patient care, not just the GP.
So, did we achieve this magic increase in activation? By actively listening to people’s problems and concerns not just about their health but about what is important to them in their wider lives and agreeing a personalised plan with them containing realistic achievable actions. This was followed up by actively encouraging, nudging and reviewing how things were going after an agreed period of time.
Hang on, isn’t this what we GPs love to do when we’re not busy ticking boxes and juggling admin’ tasks/supervision? Especially when we really know our patients well …continuity (now don’t get me started on that one!).
Sound too good to be true? What do you think?
