Publication

Aligning the NHS to deliver primary care

The UK National Health Service (NHS) is expected to achieve the policy objective of delivering a primary-care-led service. However, the NHS is a large, highly complex 'patchwork quilt' of semi-independent organizations

Patient care can rarely be delivered by just one of these organisations, and historically they have never worked closely together. Instead, there is a tendency for each to pursue its own goals, with little awareness of the needs of others in the care chain. So ingrained is this that there are fundamental organizational and cultural problems in implementing change.

The history of implementing initiatives which cut across traditional boundaries has not been good, and yet the drive to primary care demands that the NHS does just that - work in a unified way to deliver an efficient and seamless service. PA's experience of customer care in the private sector has identified a key issue here - the need to align all organisations to the same objective. Our experience of the NHS has enabled us to develop a model which encapsulates the issue of alignment, and enables NHS management to progress the agenda of a seamless, primary-care-led NHS.