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Staff perceptions on patient motives for attending GP-led urgent care centres in London: a qualitative study

OBJECTIVES: General practitioner (GP)-led urgent care centres were established to meet the growing demand for urgent care. Staff members working in such centres are central in influencing patients’ choices about which services they use, but little is known about staff perceptions of patients’ motive...

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Autores principales: Greenfield, Geva, Ignatowicz, Agnieszka, Gnani, Shamini, Bucktowonsing, Medhavi, Ladbrooke, Tim, Millington, Hugh, Car, Josip, Majeed, Azeem
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BMJ Publishing Group 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4735149/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26769775
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2015-007683
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author Greenfield, Geva
Ignatowicz, Agnieszka
Gnani, Shamini
Bucktowonsing, Medhavi
Ladbrooke, Tim
Millington, Hugh
Car, Josip
Majeed, Azeem
author_facet Greenfield, Geva
Ignatowicz, Agnieszka
Gnani, Shamini
Bucktowonsing, Medhavi
Ladbrooke, Tim
Millington, Hugh
Car, Josip
Majeed, Azeem
author_sort Greenfield, Geva
collection PubMed
description OBJECTIVES: General practitioner (GP)-led urgent care centres were established to meet the growing demand for urgent care. Staff members working in such centres are central in influencing patients’ choices about which services they use, but little is known about staff perceptions of patients’ motives for attending urgent care. We hence aimed to explore their perceptions of patients’ motives for attending such centres. DESIGN: A phenomenological, qualitative study, including semistructured interviews. The interviews were analysed using thematic content analysis. SETTING: 2 GP-led urgent care centres in 2 academic hospitals in London. PARTICIPANTS: 15 staff members working at the centres including 8 GPs, 5 emergency nurse practitioners and 2 receptionists. RESULTS: We identified 4 main themes: ‘Confusion about choices’, ‘As if increase of appetite had grown; By what it fed on’, ‘Overt reasons, covert motives’ and ‘A question of legitimacy’. The participants thought that the centres introduce convenient and fast access for patients. So convenient, that an increasing number of patients use them as a regular alternative to their community GP. The participants perceived that patients attend the centres because they are anxious about their symptoms and view them as serious, cannot get an appointment with their GP quickly and conveniently, are dissatisfied with the GP, or lack self-care skills. Staff members perceived some motives as legitimate (an acute health need and difficulties in getting an appointment), and others as less legitimate (convenience, minor illness, and seeking quicker access to hospital facilities). CONCLUSIONS: The participants perceived that patients attend urgent care centres because of the convenience of access relative to primary care, as well as sense of acuity and anxiety, lack self-care skills and other reasons. They perceived some motives as more legitimate than others. Attention to unmet needs in primary care can help in promoting balanced access to urgent care.
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spelling pubmed-47351492016-02-09 Staff perceptions on patient motives for attending GP-led urgent care centres in London: a qualitative study Greenfield, Geva Ignatowicz, Agnieszka Gnani, Shamini Bucktowonsing, Medhavi Ladbrooke, Tim Millington, Hugh Car, Josip Majeed, Azeem BMJ Open Emergency Medicine OBJECTIVES: General practitioner (GP)-led urgent care centres were established to meet the growing demand for urgent care. Staff members working in such centres are central in influencing patients’ choices about which services they use, but little is known about staff perceptions of patients’ motives for attending urgent care. We hence aimed to explore their perceptions of patients’ motives for attending such centres. DESIGN: A phenomenological, qualitative study, including semistructured interviews. The interviews were analysed using thematic content analysis. SETTING: 2 GP-led urgent care centres in 2 academic hospitals in London. PARTICIPANTS: 15 staff members working at the centres including 8 GPs, 5 emergency nurse practitioners and 2 receptionists. RESULTS: We identified 4 main themes: ‘Confusion about choices’, ‘As if increase of appetite had grown; By what it fed on’, ‘Overt reasons, covert motives’ and ‘A question of legitimacy’. The participants thought that the centres introduce convenient and fast access for patients. So convenient, that an increasing number of patients use them as a regular alternative to their community GP. The participants perceived that patients attend the centres because they are anxious about their symptoms and view them as serious, cannot get an appointment with their GP quickly and conveniently, are dissatisfied with the GP, or lack self-care skills. Staff members perceived some motives as legitimate (an acute health need and difficulties in getting an appointment), and others as less legitimate (convenience, minor illness, and seeking quicker access to hospital facilities). CONCLUSIONS: The participants perceived that patients attend urgent care centres because of the convenience of access relative to primary care, as well as sense of acuity and anxiety, lack self-care skills and other reasons. They perceived some motives as more legitimate than others. Attention to unmet needs in primary care can help in promoting balanced access to urgent care. BMJ Publishing Group 2016-01-14 /pmc/articles/PMC4735149/ /pubmed/26769775 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2015-007683 Text en Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/ This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
spellingShingle Emergency Medicine
Greenfield, Geva
Ignatowicz, Agnieszka
Gnani, Shamini
Bucktowonsing, Medhavi
Ladbrooke, Tim
Millington, Hugh
Car, Josip
Majeed, Azeem
Staff perceptions on patient motives for attending GP-led urgent care centres in London: a qualitative study
title Staff perceptions on patient motives for attending GP-led urgent care centres in London: a qualitative study
title_full Staff perceptions on patient motives for attending GP-led urgent care centres in London: a qualitative study
title_fullStr Staff perceptions on patient motives for attending GP-led urgent care centres in London: a qualitative study
title_full_unstemmed Staff perceptions on patient motives for attending GP-led urgent care centres in London: a qualitative study
title_short Staff perceptions on patient motives for attending GP-led urgent care centres in London: a qualitative study
title_sort staff perceptions on patient motives for attending gp-led urgent care centres in london: a qualitative study
topic Emergency Medicine
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4735149/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26769775
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2015-007683
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