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Developing “out of hours” primary health care: Some key qualitative factors in service selection and evaluation by patients in the UK

Sara Shaw (Royal College of General Practitioners, London, UK)
Timothy Milewa (Centre for Health Services Studies, University of Kent, Cantebury, UK)

Journal of Management in Medicine

ISSN: 0268-9235

Article publication date: 1 June 1998

300

Abstract

The issue of “out of hours” provision of primary care services by family doctors has excited particularly marked debate in the UK. This article considers the implications for this debate of results from a project designed to elicit the views of users of out of hours primary care provision. Focus groups were used to gauge definitions of “out of hours” services, factors governing the use of some services rather than others and influences on the evaluation of different options. The centrality accorded by patients to the social dimensions of a more “traditional” relationship with family doctors was central to the selection and evaluation of alternative provision. Any significant initiative in the reconfiguration of local health care services might thus be regarded as much a social enterprise as a technical challenge based on the most equitable and efficient application of resources.

Keywords

Citation

Shaw, S. and Milewa, T. (1998), "Developing “out of hours” primary health care: Some key qualitative factors in service selection and evaluation by patients in the UK", Journal of Management in Medicine, Vol. 12 No. 3, pp. 143-150. https://doi.org/10.1108/02689239810231961

Publisher

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MCB UP Ltd

Copyright © 1998, MCB UP Limited

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