Poor health and care coordination causing problems for patients, report warns

Poor coordination between health and care services in the UK are likely to cause problems for patients, a new report from the Health Foundation has warned.

The ‘Under pressure’ report found that 79 per cent of GPs had at least one of their patients experience a problem in the pervious month due to poor communication across multiple sites or care providers, compared to an average of 48 per cent across the other 11 countries surveyed.

The Health Foundation found that the GPs based in the UK reported greater challenges when coordinating care with social services or other community providers, with 70 per cent of GPs finding it somewhat or very difficult.

The findings have led the Health Foundation to warn that the quality of patient care is being negatively affected by the lack of communication between a fragmented health and care system, with the UK also having the highest rate of repeat tests and procedures due to tests being lost or unavailable.

Despite these negative findings, the report did find some evidence of good communication in the UK healthcare system, with the UK ranking highest in the use of electronic medical records (EMR) as 98 per cent of GPs were found to routinely use EMR in their daily practice.

Edward Davies, policy fellow at the Health Foundation, said: “Action needs to be taken to ensure patients consistently receive high quality care and don’t become entangled in the complicated web connecting different parts of the health and care system in the UK.

“GPs are reporting challenges coordinating care for their patients with different parts of the system, especially social services and community providers. UK GPs report the highest number of patients experiencing problems as a result of poor coordination of care. This complex array of relationships between different parts of the health and care system and how they are coordinated needs to be better understood to safeguard the quality of patient care.”