A rapid view of access to care

A range of factors contribute to whether patients feel they have good access to general practice care, including practice location, opening times, ease of arranging appointments, and speed of access. Performance by access criteria is now part of the quality-monitoring system for general practice. But patients still complain of trade-offs, for instance between speed of access and seeing the practitioner of choice. To inform its work, the Inquiry panel commissioned a research project to describe what good-quality access to GP care looks like, and how it can best be measured. This research paper provides a framework for assessing access, and looks at the implications for future general practice provision.