Care Home Patients
The health and wellbeing of older people in care homes depends on them accessing GP services in a timely way. Joint working between GP and care home management, the involvement of residents and their relatives and the engagement of care staff are factors that will affect the outcome and lead to quality improvements.
Please contact us to tell us if you, or someone you are the carer for, move into a care home, change care homes, or move out of a care home.
Alongside their requirements for care and support, the majority of older residents have significant health conditions and health care needs. Many experience long-term, chronic and fluctuating conditions, often including multiple impairments and comorbidities affecting their health, intellectual capacity and psychological wellbeing.
Care home and nursing home residents have the same rights as the rest of the population to access the full range of general medical services (GMS) The GP is their route to referral for assessment and treatment by primary and secondary NHS services. The relationship between the home and the residents' GPs is therefore critical to their health and wellbeing.
GPs can seek additional NHS funding to provide a range of enhanced medical services, and residents of care homes may be among those to benefit from such arrangements.
Local enhanced service agreements
Typically, a local enhanced service agreement for residents of a care home or nursing home requires the general practice to provide a named lead clinician, a set number of sessions a week, and commitment to:
- a weekly visit (for an expected minimum of three hours)
- a weekly follow-up session (for an expected minimum of one hour)
- appropriate clinical administrative work.
Not all the residents in a care home will need to be seen weekly. Following a comprehensive initial medical assessment, some will require only routine medical monitoring while others may require a more intense period of medical review.
A new resident should be involved, with their relatives where appropriate, in the decision about whether to remain registered with their current GP practice, or transfer to the list of a GP practice with which the care home has arrangements for cooperation, joint working and/or enhanced services.
A GP's primary relationship is with the resident who is their patient rather than with a care home. Working in partnership with the home is, however, essential to providing a good-quality service to residents. Practice suggests that good relationships between GP practices and residents are built up through regular contact and respectful, interpersonal communication which builds trust and confidence.