By 2030, general practice will be a revitalised and growing profession. That is the future of general practice according to the Royal College of General Practitioners’ (RCGP’s) new document, Fit for the Future: A vision for general practice. With the right staffing levels, GP workload will be manageable and job satisfaction rates will have increased, it predicts.
The report sets out a vision for what general practice will look like in 2030 based on consultation with more than 3,000 GPs, other health professionals and patients, as well as research commissioned from The King's Fund.
The report envisions an overhaul of the GP patient record, which will include data from genomic profiling and wearable devices. Networks of GP practices will evolve into 'wellbeing hubs'. Continuity of care will be maintained and improved and delivered via 'micro-teams'.
In the College’s model, patients will have more choice over the length, time and method of consultation and the standard face-to-face consultation length will be at least 15 minutes.
Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard, Chair of the RCGP, said: "Ours is an ambitious vision but it is not a pipe dream. Realising it will depend on having a sufficiently resourced service to keep people well and provide them with the care they need around the clock, and we have identified several key enablers to deliver this.
"With these building blocks in place we can not only deliver world class, patient-centred primary care, we can ensure that being a GP is the best job in the world," she said.
