A recent report (Oct 2007) carried out by Lord Darzi concluded that despite investment and improvement in the NHS, access to primary medical care services and the quality of those services, still varies significantly across the country. Many of the poorest communities in England experience the worst health outcomes and major inequalities still exist in life expectancy, infant mortality and cancer mortality.

Equitable Access in Primary Medical Care is a national programme in which North East Lincolnshire Care Trust Plus is actively participating. The aim is that it will play a significant role in achieving more personalised care for the individual and a more personalised NHS overall. The Government will be providing significant new investment to support Primary Care Trusts in establishing new health centers’ providing additional walk in facilities in all Primary Care Trust areas and additional GP surgeries in Primary Care Trust areas of most need.

Improving Access

North East Lincolnshire Care Trust Plus aims to use this initiative to help improve access to primary care based services, the quality of those services and to support continued delivery of a sustained reduction in health inequality. The key objectives of the North East Lincolnshire Care Trust Plus Procurement are:

• To provide patients with greater access to NHS primary medical care services through additional capacity;
• To improve the quality of primary medical care available to patients; and
• To deliver affordable and Value for Money (VfM) NHS primary medical care services.

A key part of this will be raising the expectations of the local population to enable their choices to create additional requests for primary care improvements. North East Lincolnshire Care Trust Plus will  consult with and seek the opinions of the population in order to ensure that the right decisions are made.

Contact Us

If you have any questions regarding Equitable Access please contact the Equitable Access Team.