Pandemic threatens primary care for long term conditions

Abstract

During the height of the covid-19 pandemic, attention was diverted away from primary care's key roles in early detection of disease and management of long term conditions. However, the core primary healthcare functions of accessible first contact, comprehensiveness, coordination, continuity, and person centredness were challenged even before this. 1 General practices' workloads have steadily risen in the past decade. In England between 2010-11 and 2019, the overall number of consultations per registered patient each year rose from 4.29 to 5.17 2 3 in a growing population.