The rapid move to remote consultations due to Covid-19
Funding
BNSSCG CCG Research Capability Funding (Local development)
What is the research question?
To investigate how the move to remote consultations has changed access for patients, whether it has increased health inequities and whether it has led to any adverse events.
What is the problem?
In March 2020, to minimise patient face-to-face contact and reduce contagion of the SARS-Cov-2 virus, UK general practice rapidly moved to remote consulting for patients. In April 2020, the NIHR School for Primary Care research (SPCR) funded University of Bristol Centre for Academic Primary Care (CAPC) researchers to investigate this rapid move and share challenges and innovation in the implementation of remote consulting across general practices in Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire (BNSSG) Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). The resulting project RAPID COVID-19 Intelligence to Improve Primary Care response (RAPCI) has resulted in four rapid reports, which were produced in collaboration with BNSSG CCG and OneCare. Each report has been shared with practices to inform the local response, presented at primary care cell to inform the CCG response and shared with SAGE to inform the national response. RAPCI is due to complete at the end of August 2020. There is a need to a) carry out further research on the extracted RAPCI data, b) investigate if they are nationally applicable and commensurate with the experience of patients and c) further investigate how remote consulting has affected access for particular patient groups.
What is the aim of the research?
The aim is to investigate the implementation of remote consulting in general practice and the effect this has had on patient care, specifically whether there is evidence that it has led to problems being missed and whether this varies among different groups of patients.
How will this be achieved?
Further analysis of the RAPCI data will be carried out to investigate how consultations have changed in complexity and content, and whether this change differs according to deprivation or ethnicity and among two vulnerable groups, specifically patients with mental health problems, and patients with conditions that require shielding. A second study will replicate the RAPCI extension analysis in the national dataset curated by the Royal College of General Practitioners Research Surveillance Centre (RCGP RSC) to see if changes in consulting patterns result from changes in access to primary care. This will be supplemented with qualitative interviews with patients who have received telephone or video consultations to understand their views on these.
Who is leading the research?
Dr Mairead Murphy, Research Fellow, Population Health Sciences, Centre for Academic Primary Care, University of Bristol.
Further information:
For more information or to get involved in this project, please contact bnssg.research@nhs.net.